Jack, I've experimented with developing a 7-watt, self-wicking swamp cooler that works pretty well.
Haven't experimented with EVERY fabric known to man, but did find, surprisingly, that absorbant paper towels tended to wick better than about any cloth fabric I could test.But even., then, they tend to wick up only about 6 inches above the water surface. What really helps is to hang them with open pleats facing the air source and allowing a tiny bit of air space between each hanging wick. That allows the air to pass between them a tiny bit. If using a high-efficiency, low-wattage 12v fan made for use in RVs and campers, having the open end of the pleat facing the fan's exhaust also helps the pleats balloon a bit and speeds evaporation. My design provides 8 to 10 degree cooling for about 5 feet in front of the swamp cooler exhaust. So it's a personal cooler, not a room cooler. Although it does noticeably help cool the room a tiny bit, so long as you have fresh air vents in the room bringing in occasional super dry gusts. That's when you notice the moisture evaporating in areas of the room other than directly in front of the cooler. The more folds of wicking material you can fit in your box (if buidling a swamp cooler) the more cooling effect you'll get. Have yet to experiment with putting the fan on the top of the box, ponting down at the wicks and water tray on the bottom. Am planning to test that next. Have tried quite a few variations. Have found that the fan BEHIND the wicks, blowing air through them, provides better cooling than locating the fan in front of the wicks so that it *draws* the air through the wicks. Also have found that having a larger intake opening than exhaust opening seems to help a bit, too. About a 2::1 ratio has seemed best in my experiments. You can do these with cardboard boxes and duct tape and rubber maid shoe-box size plastic containers. The type of fan I use is this: http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/fan-tastic-endless-breeze-12v-fan/38132 I also found at the end of summer about six years ago at a Wal Mart in Albuquerque a season closeout price on Wal-Mart's "Ozark Trails" version of this fan and bought seven of them for $4 each and am using those in two of my swamp cooler. They actually use less wattage than the Endless Breeze, but push slightly less air through, too. May have been four years ago I wrote here about Buckminster Fuller's proven "cooling effect," but have not yet heard of anyone experimenting with it on the playa with hexayurts. Fuller proved that putting a rain-capped stovepipe in the center of the roof of his circular dymation house or at the apex of the roof of a geodesic dome, and then having open vents about 1 foot above floor level around the walls of the building created an amazing, counter-intuitive cooling effect. The ratio of low-wall vent airflow capacity to roof vent was about 4 to 1, if I recall correctly. What happens -- and Fuller demonstrated this multiple times, including in a dome at the equator built for the U.S. military -- is that as the ground around the building and the walls of the building heat up as the sun beats down, this creates a flow of warm air rising around the outside of the building. That rising air creates suction at the floor level vents, pulling air out of the building. That causes a rush of air to be pulled down into the building through the roof vent. Fuller said this phenomenon extends for hundreds of feet into the air above the building. So you have hot air rising in a circle around the building and COOL air from higher in the atmosphere hundreds of feet above the building being sucked down the center of the invisible column. The cooling effect was commonly reported to be in the range of 20 degrees. That is, the air coming in through the root pipe and dropping on the room had an effect of cooling the room by about 20 degrees from its temperature with the vents all closed. Pretty amazing. Completely passive (other than opening and closing vents). And, other than the initial cost to build (the pvc or stove pipe and rain cap and dampers), free. I say that this is counter intuitive because normally we expect interior heat to rise and exit through a roof vent. And normally it does. And that certainly helps exhaust heat from the room or building. But it doesn't bring in a nice, steady, flow of cool air that drops on the room from the ceiling. Hope that helps inspire someone to experiment and report their results. Best, ken winston caine ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Senechal" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, July 04, 2011 3:19 PM Subject: Re: [hexayurt] Windows I've used metal tape to fix a plexiglass panel to the outside, and it worked great. You could do two for better insulation, one inside and one out. And if you have two panels of plexiglass, you can bolt through them for extra solidity. But I think that might be overkill for the Playa. Having the cutout in there to block the sun during the part of the day when it shines in the window directly would probably be a good idea. Regarding ventilation, I suspect that it would work well to generate an updraft by installing a black chimney pipe in the roof. That would draw air up when the sun shines on it, pulling it in through your vents below. As an added bonus, you could put a damp cloth over the vent so air has to pass through it, which would cool it down and moisturize the air. You'd need a course fabric for that, something that's absorbent and loosely woven so air could pass through well. You could drape the bottom into a bucket of water, and it would wick it up continuously. I haven't actually tried those ventilation ideas to work out the kinks yet, but I intend to do that this year. The principles behind it are sound though :) Jack On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Milt Fisher <[email protected]> wrote: > I was planning to tape the filters to the outside after setting up. That > way > I could replace the cutouts during dust storms if too much dust came > through > the filters. > Did you just have one filter? Was that enough to provide ventilation? > On Jul 4, 2011, at 9:44 AM, Steve Upstill <[email protected]> wrote: > > Don't know if you're headed for the Playa, but I liked my hyurt nice and > dark. I had great results with a furnace filter: cut a hole just small > enough to hold the filter firmly. Bonus: you can still fold/stack your > panels. > Cheers, > Steve > -- > Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you > do > criticize him, you'll be a mile away and you'll have his shoes. > > On Jul 4, 2011, at 9:03 AM, Milt Fisher wrote: >> >> I'd like some recommendations for hexayurt windows. I'm not interested in >> framed, sliding windows with screens, just some plastic of some kind >> taped >> over a hole in the panel. Any recommendations on what kind of plastic to >> use? Thin plexiglas maybe? Or perhaps flexible vinyl? > > > Any other ideas for simple windows? > I'm planning to tape the plastic to the outside and hinge the panel cutout > into the window opening so we can close it when we want darkness. > Thanks, > Milt > -- > 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. > > -- > 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. > > -- > 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. > -- 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. -- 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.
