The cause of our misery

This is the motor to our evaporative cooler.  Power runs to it and if you give it a spin with your hand, it runs.  However, since the evaporative cooler is on the roof, it's not too convenient to start that way more than about once.

 Dh took the motor out so he can take it with him to the hardware store and buy an exact replacement.  Once he had it out, he looked at the cord and saw a "chip" is out of it and one of the copper wires is in two pieces. 

That explains a lot!  It must have been the starter that didn't have electricity running to it, but the power was still there to run the motor once it was turning.

Dh thinks all it needs is a new power cord.  Much more cost-dffecient than a new motor! 

Isn't my dh smart?



I love my evaporative cooler

I think I make a post like this every year in the spring. Because I live in the desert, it's common here to use evaporative coolers in homes. In my case, I also have a chilled air conditioner unit, but the "swamp cooler" gets the biggest work out.

sourceIt can lower the inside temperature by 20 degrees F and it adds some humidity. That's good for your skin and lungs, but I'll admit in the heat of the summer sometimes that makes it a bit muggy in the house. The rest of the time it is just the right amount of moisture.

Mine is on today and I love that it's cool in the house and it's costing me practically nothing.

Vanilla Sugar

I haven't had our swamp cooler . . . oops . . . "evaporative cooler" on for a couple of weeks but the temps are around 80 today so I turned it on. My house is filled with the most lovely vanilla sugar smell from the wet excelsior pads in it.

Here is our swamp cooler. It's under the eves on the east side of the house in a shady location. It's ducted to four locations inside the house and is amazingly effective in our super-dry climate. Honestly, I don't know why anyone in my kind of climate would use refrigerated air conditioning, what with the cost to buy, install, and even more, to operate it.

Here is a scematic drawing of how it works in case you aren't familiar: