Fixing the Swamp Cooler

[kevin_standlee]

Once we got home from Fallon and the unexpected out-of-gas experience, Lisa set to work on replacing the pump on the swamp cooler.



Lisa removed the old pump, which as you can see was thoroughly encrusted with years of hard-water build-up. I chipped enough build-up to confirm that we did indeed have the correct size pump: 7500 CFM (cubic feet of air per minute moved by the cooler).



Lisa is here working on installing the new pump.



Here's the new pump in place. Lisa tested the pump, which did pump water, before buttoning the cooler back up. There was some additional work with screws (one of which had to be drilled out and replaced because it was so badly encrusted).

To our relief, the cooler started working pushing cool air again. It probably is working better than it was, because of the new pump (which pumps the water out of the base of the cooler up into the pads on three sides of the cooler), and also because while she was working on the side panels, she chipped some of the build-up off the slots at the top of each door, allowing more water to flow into the pads.

I wish that was the end of our adventures today, but we had one more to go, unfortunately.

Comments

[a_cubed]

When I lived in Reading in the UK, they have hard water. First time I'd lived in a hard water area. I had regular problems with the boiler needing descaled until I installed an electronic collar on the water main which does something weird (I never really figured out the mechanism myself) which alters the chemicals in the water preventing them from depositing on things. It doesn't take the chemicals out like a full water softener system, but it saved me lots of money of boiler maintenance, and the kettle stopped "furring up" as well. IIRC, it wasn't particularly expensive and was very easy to fit - just a modest collar around the main water riser, plus an electrical supply.