OT: alternative swamp cooler set-ups

I am not in any way suggesting that I might do this nor am I sure that it would even work, but I can't figure out a way to google the question

Suppose that you have a house with a largish attic and you put a downdraft cooler in the attic at one end of the house with the vent thru the ceiling. You could just open windows, but what if you put an "exhaust" vent in the other end of the house. At this point you could leave the attic with proper ventilation and you might get some extra cooling from the exhaust of the cooler. Or you could "unventilate" the attic and the air would continue to recycle.

Thoughts:

with the unventilated attic I suppose the humidity might build up.

the exhaust vent could allow for a filter that might provide some air quality benefits

with a little bit of extra work, you could place the swamp cooler in the middle of the attic and duct work it to the vent AND with the addition of a split duct and controllable gates you could vent the second duct to the exterior of the house and use the cooler with water off at night as a whole house fan. This would make the whole set-up useable for more hours per day

So I know I've missed something here and I know there is an increased leak/water damage risk and who knows maybe a permitting problem, but are there any major flaws in this?

Reply to
Malcom "Mal" Reynolds
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a swamp cooler is an open system by definition...it takes OUTSIDE air, runs it through wet pads which cools it and blows it into your house.

You have to open windows to let air out to allow the new air in... or you have UP-DUCTS which are exhaust ducts in the ceiling that let air out of your house into the attic where it then goes out through the attic vents. This also cools off the attic.

Mark

Reply to
Mark

I tend to think that the air in my attic while hot is generally not humid. I've toyed with the idea of having a variable vent in the attic to allow fresh non-humid air in

true, but the air that is blown into the house being cooler than the air blown into the pads would still have some small potential to cool the attic (and yes it would increase the humidity) making the next iteration of input air cooler and seemingly increasing the efficiency of the cycle. That of course depends on keeping the humidity as low as possible. I toyed with the idea that the filter in the exhaust vent could have a desiccant in it which would use the next days heat to re-dry the desiccant

Reply to
Malcom "Mal" Reynolds

It can't be any more humid than the outside air. In fact, its relative humidity is lower because it is hotter than the outside air (at least any time you're likely to need cooling).

It's kinda hard to decode exactly what you're proposing but if you're raising the humidity of the attic with the swamp cooler, it's efficiency will go

*down* since it relies on evaporation for cooling.

But you're raising the humidity with the swamp cooler. ??

Sounds like you're attempting to make a perpetual motion machine.

Reply to
krw

if I could get energy out of it, that would be cool. I was thinking more along the lines of heterodyning the cooling effect

Reply to
Malcom "Mal" Reynolds

Swamp coolers need new low humidity air from outside. You can't "use" the next day's heat to remove the humidty. All that would do is make hot, humid air. If you want a closed system then you need to transfer heat.

Reply to
jamesgangnc

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