Who wants to be a millionaire?

[SUPRsalad]

So Im not sure why, but im always thinking of ways to improve the 'swamp cooler'. Not that they don't work fine to cool your house off, but I believe I have a better design that would not only improve their performance, but save millions of americans thousands of gallons of water each year.

Im not an inventor, and I would probably never even attempt a proto-type, but if my ideas worked, i believe they are patentable and could potentially be worth a lot of money to the right (hvac) guy.

The major modification is a simple concept. Why use hot air from outside, when it could be 'rebreathing' the colder air from inside. Not only would the air get colder and colder, but it wouldn't evaporate nearly as much water saving you $$$. Not ONLY that, but I believe with this design (in conjunction with my other mod) you could do the same job of cooling of your house, with a much smaller swamp unit. Obviously this is a major exaggeration of the design, and theres obviously a cleaner way to do this,(i.e. a 'hinged' rebreather unit, for access to the swamp unit) but heres the basic concept:

The second modification involves using your refrigeration unit to make the water going into the swamp unit much colder. Not only will that improve its performance (anyone whos ever thrown a bag of ice in their swamp unit knows this) but the water should evaporate much slower, hence, saving you even more water, and again, with improved performance, a smaller swamp unit could do the job of a big one. Again, super simple concept. the water coming from the main supply in your house simply gets routed through the fridge, and coiled very tightly inside (iknow my drawing sucks) to make the water very cold before getting to the swamp unit.

drawing, for you visual people: (again, highly exaggerated. The coiling would be well hidden, and quite small.)

again, the ideas here are:
1. its simple, and could be manufactured very easily.
2. it makes a swamp cooler work much better (colder)
3. smaller swamp cooler with smaller motor could suffice where a big 3/4 hp motor was necessary before.
4. cuts evaporation dramatically. saves tons of water.
5. because you're not pulling dirty air from outside the house, the air is cleaner. (less dusting)

Might work, might not. Certainly, it would have to be 'pulling' air from a different room or hall than it would be 'pushing' it. one possibility, is that it pulls from the same cold air return the furnace uses. Just an idea. Any HVAC people may just patent this and laugh all the way to the bank with it, and Ill be happy just knowing it could save us tons of water, and also, make my precious swamp cooler work better when Im finally done working in 100+ heat all day!

 

[Nestorius]

And they say pot makes people unmotivated...

 

[SUPRsalad]

what can i say? im a highly 'mota-vated' person.

 

[Criblo]

Doesn't the entire design of an evaporative cooler require heat to be absorbed by the water, and for there to be a heat gradient? In that model there would be no gradient?

 

[SUPRsalad]

Doesn't the entire design of an evaporative cooler require heat to be absorbed by the water, and for there to be a heat gradient? In that model there would be no gradient?

i don't think so. if that were the case, why does it get FRIGID cold if you accidentally leave it on at night? The temperature of the air output, will be approximately the average between input temp, and water temp.

"This happens because the temperature and the vapor pressure of the water and the air attempt to equalize. Liquid water molecules become gas in the dry air, a process that uses energy to change the physical state. Heat moves from the higher temperature of the air to the lower temperature of the water. As a result, the air is cooler." -http://www.consumerenergycenter.org

check it out. im saying, if the air going into the cooler has dropped to 75, its going to spit out at around 59. i figure it would equalize after a point around 65 F. brisk enough for THO, which is awesome. however, what if the water temp was in the low forties? i could hang with winter indoors all summer.

 

[SUPRsalad]

lol. sorry that answer was so long, what i meant to say was,

'no. thats how an air conditioner works. its a quite different process from an evaporative cooler'

i am waiting for someone to tell me why it won't work tho. frankly, i think the swamp cooler is something that isn't a huge market. it only applies to hot dry states, and the companies that are developing them are the same few companies that have been kicking them out the same way for 50 years. Big companies with R&D facilities aren't making these things, i.e. LG, GE, etc. and I'd be willing to bet, the companies that are, find no reason to do any R&D on the design because 'it works'.

well, the V8 small block motor 'worked' for years, but now that energy isn't cheap, we see lots of R&D into more efficient vehicles, i.e prius and hybrids and others.

I read that a swamp cooler can use 25-35 gallons of water daily. Seems like quite a bit to me, considering my two month water bill is usually upwards of 200 in the summer. For a minor modification to the hvac system in yr house, seems like it would be worth it to cut that figure in half.