Desert Living.

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roc2rol
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Re: Desert Living.

Post by roc2rol »

oroblanco wrote:Hola amigo - those swamp coolers only work when you have dry hot weather, during the AZ "monsoon" season, <early July to mid September> the humidity is so high that they have little effect. They don't put this in the brochures, of course! :o :lol:
Oroblanco
Ha Ha !! & Uh Uh ! :D
I grew up in Phoenix and our house didn’t have air conditioning until 1974. Only the box swamp cooler on the roof of the house. If you can imagine a mother cooking dinner in a swampy kitchen in mid-August for a family of 8 then you can understand why cold cuts were the dinner of choice much time. Actually my dear mother made many a hot dinner in those conditions. :)

For those few month/weeks of the monsoon it was hellish sleeping. :oops: Huge dust storms would occur with threat of stormy weather on the horizon. Then it would break into a torrential rainstorm ( if lucky) and things mellowed. Being kids with lower body mass the heat didn’t bother us as much as a grown person. My Dad was a fairly large man and those monsoon weeks were murder. Where he worked was only swamp cooled, also. Sweat shops they called them for obvious reasons.

Besides those 10 or so weeks --- the swamp cooler did a great job. Low electric bills. Many people have piggyback systems on their homes these days. Swamp (or the more politically correct name –evaporative cooler) and air conditioning for the miserable weeks.
Ed
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Guz
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Re: Desert Living.

Post by Guz »

Well, there were times I had a fan and a pan of water for AC. It worked but you had to plant yourself right in front to gain any benefit!


Guz
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oroblanco
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Re: Desert Living.

Post by oroblanco »

What is an "air conditioner"? :? :lol: :lol: :lol: We don't own one and haven't for years now, but it is definitely on the "wish list"! :mrgreen:
Roy
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roc2rol
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Re: Desert Living.

Post by roc2rol »

I can imagine it gets pretty humid in dakota country!
Window units are inexpensive! ;)
Which brings up the intersting question of how people survive
in the southern states before the invention of refrigeration ?
UGGHH!
Hot, muggy, toads and pesty insects!
Its never arid!

Heck when I lived in Florida and drove over a
~~~ speed bump ~~~
I'd say my ears popped! :shock:
:lol:
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Re: Desert Living.

Post by oroblanco »

Not as hot as Cochise county Arizona was, but I would rather be too hot than freezing. :mrgreen:

As for how they survived in the southern states before the invention of AC - don't forget how nice a rocking chair on the porch in the shade, with a nice cool Mint Julep to sip on can be! :D
Roy
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Re: Desert Living.

Post by LDMGOLD »

ROY:

I have lived in an Arizona desert all my life (72 years) and we have never had refrigeration, other than a small window unit during the last ten years. My father made window swamp coolers from Hercules powder boxes, burlap sacks, copper tubing, and an oscillating fan he converted to a fix motion fan. These small swamp coolers were very efficient except for a couple months a years then we used floor fans. We lived in a stone house in Apache Junction with a tin roof and no insulation. All we had was a small swamp cooler and a fifty-five gallon barrel of water. I believe that was in 1948.

We still love the desert. We have a couple of acres up north in the land of cold and snow, but have never used it for anything but to pay taxes on it.

Tom K.
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silent hunter
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Re: Desert Living.

Post by silent hunter »

Roy I to love the heat. I go out into the superstitons for a week at a time all the summer months and never overheat. My temp range is best between 80 and 125 otherwise im cold. A swamp cooler is all you need and you can have alot of fun with the money you save not using a refridge unit!!! LOL
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roc2rol
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Re: Desert Living.

Post by roc2rol »

LDMGOLD wrote:ROY:

I have lived in an Arizona desert all my life (72 years) and we have never had refrigeration, other than a small window unit during the last ten years. My father made window swamp coolers from Hercules powder boxes, burlap sacks, copper tubing, and an oscillating fan he converted to a fix motion fan. These small swamp coolers were very efficient except for a couple months a years then we used floor fans. We lived in a stone house in Apache Junction with a tin roof and no insulation. All we had was a small swamp cooler and a fifty-five gallon barrel of water. I believe that was in 1948.

We still love the desert. We have a couple of acres up north in the land of cold and snow, but have never used it for anything but to pay taxes on it.

Tom K.
Wow that's a cool story, Tom! :)

On that land up north
do you know if you have any petrified wood?
Thanks
Ed
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Re: Desert Living.

Post by oroblanco »

Tom - thank you for sharing! I love stone houses, in fact Beth & I had planned to build one. The stone seems to help with the heat and cold - sort of like a flywheel, taking longer to get hot and cool off. Still it seems like with a tin roof and NO insulaion, that would get pretty danged hot in June! How did you sleep! I would think the upstairs would get like an oven, and the mass of stone in the walls would tend to keep that heat in the upper part of the house. We do have a small swamp cooler but it didn't seem to help much in a camper while we were living in the Sulphur hills. (E of Pearce, AZ) We did try out a small AC window unit once that a friend had brought over, but as we had only a battery bank and wind generator for power it would have been quite a drain on our power. It didn't seem to work well anyway, just ran continuously <drained the batteries fast> and the camper still seemed like an EZ-bake oven when we got home so I took it back to our friend.

When we were living at our mine in the Mojave, we didn't even have a fan believe it or not, but during the hot part of the day in summer we just worked in the tunnel as it was always cool inside, right around 60 day or night. Maybe we are all getting a little spoiled with our refrigeration-type air coolers? :D I fear that if we do get one, I won't want to go outdoors when it is hot! :shock: :oops: :mrgreen:

Silent Hunter wrote
Roy I to love the heat. I go out into the superstitons for a week at a time all the summer months and never overheat. My temp range is best between 80 and 125 otherwise im cold. A swamp cooler is all you need and you can have alot of fun with the money you save not using a refridge unit!!!
Wow amigo you are a better man than I am - I have never tried hiking the Superstitions in summer. I know Gassler and some others did but I don't think I could take it. I don't mind heat much but there is a huge difference between walking on flat land and hiking the Superstitions! One thing in favor of the summer months though, there has to be fewer tourists to avoid.
Roy
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Re: Desert Living.

Post by Guz »

And that is the only advantage as I see it :)


Guz
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