Evaporative Cooler Addition.

Here's the hodge-podge of parts I started with.
Hopefully it will enable the swamp cooler to produce even colder air.


Early construction of the cooling manifold.
There's right at 25 feet of water line zip-tied
to the wire. Refrigerated water will be recirculated continually
through the system.


The cooling manifold is installed behind the blower motor
of the swamp cooler. This is a view from outside with
the evaporative pad lifted so the pic could be shot.


This is a 'drinking fountain' from a high-school.
It's being re-purposed for a rabbit room.LOL.
I like that word: Re-purposed. Sounds better than recycled.
Here's a quick trial run of the unit.
The unit cooled the water to 51 degrees.
The thermostat worked just fine. I can select the water
temperature I want fairly easy.
I had one small leak in the outlet line to the reservoir.


There's a small leak coming from the blue outlet line.
Rather than attempting to fix it, and probably messing it up,
I rigged a 'water-return' trough to the opening in the reservoir.


A simple little aluminum trough returns the 'drips' to the tank.


Here's a view of the back with the paneling installed.
The large clear tubing hooks to the water pump.
The smaller 'milky' tubing is the return to the cooling unit.
Two electrical lines: One for the pump. The other for the cooler.


A side view with the air-intake filter installed.


A front view of the cooling unit with the paneling installed.
Under that white tag on the upper left of the unit is the
thermostat control screw. I can adjust the water temperature up or down.
When I first started on this project, I wore myself to a frazzle
continually circling the cooler while I worked on it.
"This is wearin' me out." Was my thinking.
As a testament to Grandpa's favorite saying:
Work 'smarter.......not 'harder'....I came up with this.
A furniture dolly, "wheels-greased".
Two milk crates, zip-tied together.
Resting on a 5/4" inch board and the cooler on top.
I could sit in one spot and easily turn the cooler
to the side I wanted to work on. It saved me dozens of hours
and hundreds of moves getting this thing done.
Sooooooo much easier.


Leveling a spot for the cooling unit under the swamp cooler fan.


The unit's in place with the pump in operation.
I'll run a line from the upper A/C plug-in down
tomorrow for the cooler. It's on a seperate breaker from
the other fans.
None too soon either...it's supposed to hit ninety+ tomorrow.

Amazing !! It is a Gift to look at a bunch of material...and See what it Could become. Then to be able to Construct it and Make it Work... awesome. Hat is off to You !

Grumpy you are a man after my own heart! We love to see what we can build out of what we have laying around. It is a lost art form that we are hoping to pass on to our kids. My husband works with a group of people with engineering degrees who are great at mapping stuff out on paper, but they can't actually build anything and make it work. We built a small swamp cooler out of a 5 gallon bucket, computer fan, and some pvc. Found instructions on a facebook post and just had to see if we could do it - LOL. Swamp coolers don't do a whole lot in our humidity, but the point was just to know that you could build one if you had to. You learn something anytime you try a new project that may help you later. Keep it up and share the knowledge when you can!

Nice going, grumpy! I hope it works to spec.

I was telling my husband about this last night. (He does appliance repair with a bit of hvac - his Dad does the hvac part, he helps when needed). As I described it, he got a big grin on his face. Before I even told him about the drinking fountain, he said, "He's cooling the water that goes into the swamp cooler." He thought it was a good idea.

TerriG":naihqlif said:

I was telling my husband about this last night. (He does appliance repair with a bit of hvac - his Dad does the hvac part, he helps when needed). As I described it, he got a big grin on his face. Before I even told him about the drinking fountain, he said, "He's cooling the water that goes into the swamp cooler." He thought it was a good idea.

Click to expand...

It definately made a difference.
It got up to 93 degrees yesterday afternoon.
The two rooms combined have 1244 square feet.
I have a large 42" wide door passage between them.
It's always opened to allow good circulation.

The temp inside the rooms was 76 degrees
at the hottest part of the day. I still need
to put the 'drip-hose' back up on the roof.
That helps a bunch as well.

Grumpy.

You're the man, grumpy!

Amazing stuff, Grumpy! I'm going to show this to my husband!