Swamp Coolers

Well it finally got hot enough that I had to turn on the swamp cooler for the first time.

For you non-desert dwellers, an evaporative cooler, or swamp cooler, is much more efficient here in the desert than air conditioning since our air is so dry. The machine has a pan of water that is cooled, and then it blows the outside air across the water and into the house. It cools and slightly humidifies the house.

The odd thing about swamp coolers is you have to have at least one window in the house cracked to relieve the pressure. It also helps direct the air. I turn on the swamp cooler in the back bedroom, and then crack the front kitchen window and that draws the air through the house.

The only bad thing about swamp coolers, is that on the five or six days out of the year that we have humidity, they are absolutely useless. So then it's unbearably hot AND humid!

But something about the swamp cooler is annoying Salem, he is making all sorts of racket. He stands in the bedroom crying, and then he comes into the living room where I am and cries at me. Like he's saying, "Go turn it off!"

But man, is this house cooler! It's going to be a long, hot summer!