Reminds me of the time one of my guys thought he could just put a window mount AC inside his enclosed equipment trailer to keep it cool.

Our computer lab has been overheating this summer.

I walked in last week and they had bought 3 portable cooling units that were sitting on a table just inside the door, with the heat evacuation hoses (my description) just hanging behind the table.

To be fair, the lab is in the middle of the office with no windows anywhere near. I suggested taking them through the ceiling up to a couple of vents on the roof and that seems to have helped a bit.

Now they've added 2 massive fans blowing out one door, and another blowin in a nearby door. I don't know if it's cooling the lab much, but I sure wouldn't want to sit in any of the cubes near lab, it's hot over there.

With no A/C in our house, it gets mighty hot. This is when working from home sucks!! I am about ready to get a small window mount AC.

J.D.

We have a big fan set into the ceiling in the middle of the house. It takes all the hot air that rises and shoves it into the attic. Then we open windows in the basement on the shaded side of the house. It does a good job of keeping the house cool.

We have A/C, but we only turn it on in the middle of the day on really hot days. Usually only use it 10 or 20 times a summer. When we first got here from Arizona we didn't use it at all the first 2 summers.

Why don't Coloradan's use swamp coolers? Seems like they'd be perfect here.

I had a swamp cooler going up and they work great up to about 90 degrees but seemed no match for the higher 90's and 100's.

They do work pretty well here and there are a lot of folks who use them. However, a freon type system works well in all temp ranges and requires less maintenance. Or at least that seems to be the case.

J.D.

Good info on the swampers. I was tempted to get one as our house has no A/C and we're dying. Who likes coming home at the end of the day to an 85 deg house? Not me. I think we'll go central air, even though it's going to cost an arm and a leg to get installed.

I have a large swamp cooler on my house. I love it! My last xcel bill was 75 bucks. My house stays at no more than 70 degrees on the hottest day so far. That is with the cooler running on low speed. At night we drop the temp to sleep more comfortably and wake up to a house sitting at around 60. We don't run the fan on high because it scares one of my dogs and it really isn't necessary. Very cheap to run and keeps it nice and cool. That being said it does take a bit of maintenance. I have adjusted the belt, oiled the bearings and tightened all the set screws at least 4 times this year. I replaced the pads last year at the cost of 80 bucks(different pads than most coolers, these are designed to last 5 years). It does mess with my allergies too. Not too bad but it does. Never even factored it into the resale value as it was on my house when I bought it. I like it a lot though.

In Arizona, I bought one of the plastic side vent swamp coolers. I built a frame out of 2x4 and put casters on it. I put it at the right height to in a window and made a nice baffle to fill the gaps around it. I also put a thermostat and an automatic water flush on it.

I could only use it for 2 1/2 months in the spring and fall, but cutting out A/C for those months was a huge savings. And having it on rollers made it very easy to pull it out on the deck to run maintainance on it. I should have brought it with me, but I thought "Colorado....hot??? no way" and gave it to a brother.

The plastic was also great because nothing ever rusted on it. But if we saw a big dust storm coming we quickly had to turn it off, push it out and close the window or we'd be filled with dust.

What is an air conditioner? We don't have those things 'round here.

My house is brick, built in 1882, and stays super cool. Even on a scorcher like yesterday. It got up to 82 degrees, whew!

I'll take the -30* winter lows, if I never see 95* again.

Chad

Say what you will about government jobs, it's nice to have an office that is sitting at 68 degrees most days.

Hey, that might fit under a Bronco dash. Power cord would need to be pretty long though.

thats special