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Up-Dux
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Here is a story we were interviewed for a Energy Crises Special posted in the
Modesto Bee March 25th, 2001.
Read here on this page or go Directly to the Bee's website.
http://www.modbee.com/reports/power/stories/20010325_01.html
Swamp coolers seen in new
light
BY RON DeLACY
BEE STAFF WRITER
(Published: Sunday, March 25,
2001)
JAMESTOWN -- As the rolling
blackouts roll into high gear this summer, don't blame the off-line plants or
the greedy power companies or the governor. Blame your ozone-polluting,
megawatt-hungry pig of an air conditioner.
"On a hot, peak-demand day," said Ray Darby, who works in the energy
efficiency division of the California Energy Commission, "commercial and
residential air conditioning take about one-third of the state's electricity.
That's a lot."
And it would be a lot less if people in relatively dry climates, including the
Central Valley, would rip out their air conditioners and replace them with the
relative economy and comfort of yesteryear's and tomorrow's preferred heat
regulator: the evaporative cooler.
No, not the swamp cooler -- the evaporative cooler. People who manufacture, sell
and support these appliances are trying to purge "swamp" from the name
because of the image of Southern discomfort it conveys.
If an evaporative cooler gives your home a feeling of a swamp, something is
wrong. Either the relative humidity is too high, or it's not installed properly,
or all the doors and windows are closed as if you were running an air
conditioner.
For an air conditioner, you need to keep doors closed just as you do with a
refrigerator.
The air conditioner, like the fridge, uses a compressor, which compresses gas
while its chemical refrigerants harm the ozone layer.
An evaporative cooler uses water, a low-horsepower motor to pump the water to
porous pads, and a blower.
As the water evaporates, it cools the air. The blower sucks in hot air, filters
it through the pads, cools it, humidifies it and blows it into the house.
If all the windows are closed, it will make the place muggy. You have to keep
something open, far away from the cooler, so the cool air can come in and push
the hot air out.
"And you keep circulating the air," said Rod Poplarchick, owner of
Climate Control Systems in Oakhurst. "You don't keep breathing the same
stale air over and over again like you do with an air conditioner."
Poplarchick sells the Aireze line of coolers, which, he said, can reduce indoor
temperatures by as much as 40 degrees in low humidity while using one-third to
one-fifth of the energy that a typical air conditioner uses.
Some other contractors, like Jeff Sargo of Central Heat, Air and Sheet Metal in
Sonora, downplay the difference.
"Air conditioners are a lot more efficient than they used to be," he
said, "so money isn't as big a deal. It comes down to personal preference
-- some people say they can't stand dry air from an air conditioner, and others
say they can't stand moisture from a swamp cooler."
Sargo, who sells and services air conditioners and evaporative coolers, also
said he doubts any 40-degree claims for the latter.
"On the best day, I'd say you can bring the temperature down 20 degrees --
if it's 100 outside, you can get it down to 80," he said.
Sargo also said higher humidity in the valley makes evaporative cooling tougher.
Clearly, the coolers are less popular in the flatlands than in the foothills.
J.S. West & Symons of Sonora stocks several models, while its mother store,
J.S. West of Modesto, doesn't stock any.
Dick Imfeld, owner of IC Refrigeration Service in Modesto, said he occasionally
gets orders for evaporative coolers, but not often.
"There has never been much of a market for them here," said Imfeld,
who has been in the business since the 1960s. "Part of it's because we're
spoiled -- we've always had cheap electricity."
If climate is another part of it, you can't tell by temperature differences. In
Jamestown, where evaporative coolers are the rule rather than the exception,
average summer high temperatures are as hot as Modesto's.
According to the National Climatic Data Center, the average highs from June to
August in Modesto are 88.9, 94.1 and 92.3. In Sonora, they're 87.1, 94.6 and
93.6. (Averages aren't available for Jamestown, but ask anybody who lives here
-- it's hotter than Sonora.)
Statistics on relative humidity are tougher to come by. The state Department of
Forestry and Fire Protection checks them throughout the summer for fire-danger
indexes, but doesn't keep averages.
Sargo said humidity is considerably higher in the valley. National Weather
Service forecaster Karl Swanberg said it's slightly lower except when the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta breeze kicks in.
Suffice to say that in the Central Valley, the humidity sits well between the
extremes of an arid desert, where evaporative coolers work best, and the humid
Deep South, where they don't work at all.
Then there's the health issue. Supporters of evaporative coolers say they're
better for you, constantly bringing you filtered fresh air instead of dry,
recycled indoor air. Skeptics say they'll bring you nothing but mold.
Dr. James Mosson, a family physician in Sonora, sees patients who use coolers
and patients who use air conditioners, and doesn't think they're dying from
either of them.
"You should keep the pads clean on a swamp cooler," he said, "and
we see some respiratory problems from some people breathing air that's too dry
-- but that's more in the winter, from running wood stoves without tea pots on
them.
"From the health standpoint, I don't think it makes much difference, air
conditioner or swamp cooler. And when the power goes off this summer, of course,
it won't make any difference at all. We'll all by standing outside, squirting
each other with hoses."
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