Hey Bill, We met while I was out and about on my bike looking for HY peeps (Wed or Thurs, can't remember which day). I was on a blue bike and you had 2 friends hanging out in your shade (a couple). After seeing your 6' yurt, I'll definitely be going that route next year.
I concur on the swamp cooler, it makes a huge difference! I got around 15 degrees cooler as well, and ran the exhaust fan on the roof also. My water source was primarily melted ice from my ice chests, which was 2-3 bags a day, and I had a full 5 gal bucket to dump when I left. I've posted on another thread the design I used, and for anyone wanting to DIY on the swamp cooler I couldn't recommend this design enough. Good to meet you, may be next year I'll join you in the AEZ. -Jeff here's a pic of the swamp cooler: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40011...@n04/3901766454/in/set-72157622314139798/ On Sep 18, 9:28 am, Adam Gensler <[email protected]> wrote: > bill-- > > do you have pictures you'd be willing to post? > > -a > > --- On Thu, 9/17/09, Bill Wiltschko <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: Bill Wiltschko <[email protected]> > Subject: [hexayurt] Playa stories - year two > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, September 17, 2009, 8:18 PM > > My playa story concerns two elements I did not have last year. Cleaning up > the panels from last year's burn, and cooling the interior more. > > I have a 6' wall HY, with a foyer at one corner for a door. I was going to > make the foyer an airlock, but a low-speed gust of wind the night we got in > last year took one of two doors off the van rack and broke it into five > pieces on the playa. Only one door means a foyer instead of an airlock. > More on the remaining door later. > > Getting the panels ready for another week on the playa involved three steps. > Bi-filament tape removal, cleaning, and patching. > 1) The hard part was getting off the bi-filament tape. First, I made the > mistake of removing all of it. I should have thought of it like painting a > house; you scrape off the paint that will scrape off and leave the rest > intact. Nevertheless, the majority of tape came off easily. The ten months > that had elapsed between BM and my maintenance weekend let the Davis, CA > heat bake off more of the tape. Bi-filament tape does deteriorate in direct > sun on the playa, although not as much as duct tape. More heat over more > time will degrade it further. This is a good thing. It deteriorates, but > not quickly. Removing some of the tape did some damage to the panels - that > is, the tape peeled off some of the Aluminum facing. I did not try to > remove the glue that was left from the tape. I'm going to try acetone and > other nasty stuff this year. > > 2) Cleaning was simple once I worked out a system. I sprayed water on a > panel, scrubbed with the mesh side of a windshield squeegee, rinsed with > water, then squeegee'd the remaining water off. This produced a fast, > thorough cleaning. No more playa dust. The roofs were worst, since the > slightest rain made the panels dust magnets. So, cleaning the roof panels > was the most satisfying. > > 3) I patched up the torn and cut places with all-weather Aluminum tape. I > used over a roll ($20/roll) on this patching. Most was used to re-seal the > edges. If you bevel the edges, you will have a tight seal and cutting the > bi-filament tape to break apart the panels will almost always result in > cutting the edge tape. Even so, patching is kind of fun to do. I also had > foam core sealant to build up sections that were crushed when I dropped a > panel. > > This year I wanted it cooler inside, so I vowed to put in a swamp cooler. > Since I stay in the Alternative Energy Zone (AEZ), no generators are > allowed, so that ruled out going with an air conditioner. Everything had to > work on 12 volts (driven by batteries and PV panel). I purchased a 12v > swamp cooler called TurboKOOL, a product from a small Nevada company > (www.turbokoo.com). I also purchased a 12v exhaust fan from an RV supply > company that shall remain nameless due to its awful delivery time. > > I built a plenum from plywood and 2x4s, and used left-over pieces of Thermax > to insulate it. The TurboKOOL is designed to sit on an RV roof and blow air > down, but I needed air to go in horizontally near the bottom of the HY. So, > the TurboKOOL sat on the plenum and the plenum butted against a HY wall to > get the air in sideways. The louvers on the inside of the HY were far > enough away that I needed to construct an extension cord using unusual Molex > connectors (the TurboKOOL guy sent me the part numbers and Digikey had them > in stock). I also needed to insert an Anderson Power Pole connector > (www.powerwerx.com) into the louver so I could get power to the cooler. I > use Power Poles for all my 12v connections, so this was straight-forward. > You could put a terminal block on the louver or any other connector you > might wish. > > For a water source, I built an elaborate pumping system, then asked myself > why I was doing all this. I found two 4-gal plastic buckets at the dump and > put one bucket on a saw horse and gravity fed it into the TurboKOOL. Worked > great. It used about a gallon an hour. I bring in about 70 gallons of > water, so I had plenty of slack. > > I then had to figure out where to put the exhaust fan. I put this off to > the playa. Why an exhaust fan, you may ask? Because a swamp cooler needs a > flow of air. If air doesn't leave the structure, it just gets really humid. > Just try spraying water in a stock HY and see what happens. Helly in the > AEZ gave me the answer. She had a mini-HY in which she put a low inlet and > a high outlet for air. I was really reluctant to put the exhaust fan in the > roof panels, but her example convinced me it had to be done that way. On > the playa, I cut a 13.75 x 13.75 square hole in the roof (crossing two roof > panels), and the exhaust fan could be dropped in easily from the inside. > > The results were fantastic. I got 10 degree minimum and 15 degree typical > temperature differentials, and a maximum of 35% humidity inside. The only > drawback was that I had to run the exhaust fan harder than the swamp cooler > fan, with the result that there was negative pressure inside. This did not > present a dust problem, since I had sealed the ground cloth under the HY > against the outside of the walls. But it did keep pulling the door inward. > Now, the door also gets most of the abuse during the week. So next year I > want to make a new door out of plywood to get a great seal. And I want to > put Aluminet over the HY to reduce the heat load and make 20 degree > differentials possible (theoretical maximum is about 30 degrees). > > It was fun. Hope this helps someone. > > Bill --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hexayurt" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hexayurt?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
