Homemade Evap. Air Cooler - The "5 Gallon Bucket" Swamp Cooler! DIY - can be solar powered!
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- čas přidán 15. 08. 2013
- How to make an Evap./Swamp Air Cooler using a 5 gallon bucket. Evaporative Cooler works very well. easy to make. powerful breeze. low temps. for even more cooling add ice to the water. holds 2 gallons of water at a time. takes about 15 watts of power to run. can be solar powered
**UPDATE (5/22/2018) If you like this vid. check out my latest and greatest bucket evap air cooler (made with two 5 gallon buckets) *to create a "10 gallon tower" evap air cooler!. here's the youtube video link • DIY Evap Air Cooler! -... - Věda a technologie
I just built one of these based on your video, with a few personal touches, I have it in a 24' travel trailer. Its been running for 1 hr now, and the thermometer at the far end of the trailer has gone down 10 Degrees from 95 to 85. It works better than I expected.
Right on
One thing I would change is have an outflow for the submersible pump. You've clamped it off, so the back flow pressure is very high which will wear out the pump. Have the tube go back into the water. If this relieves too much pressure in the line then just make more and bigger holes.
Wondered the same & also if 1/4” irrigation soaker hose tubing would work with this setup?
without doubt, the VERY BEST DIY portable cooler out there.
Of course the efficacy of a swamp cooler depends greatly on the humidity.
This will work MUCH better in Phoenix AZ than Miami FL.
Good work!
I made a large scale model of this and am using it for a humidifier using a return air line to my furnace. Now my home is even warmer than before and has humidity again to breath better without dryness. I may install a humidifier thermostat to control the moister flow. Thanks for the idea bro. You have a thumbs up friend :)
Good idea. I saw a similar set up but it used an aquarium to hold the water and the screen went over the open portion of a window and the homeowner had a fan blowing into his attic which vented through the roof. He did a couple windows in the same manner and he dropped the temp in his house from ninety something down to the high seventies if I remember correctly. A cool setup indeed.
Wow this is very clever. I never would've imagine coming up with something like this.
I thought - man I'll bet it takes a year to drill the little holes in the hose; but then you show that a pin prick from a push-pin does the job in one minute! Excellent video
I LIKE! One of the better video's on swamp coolers that I have seen. Thanks for the tip about bacteria.
Just got mine done; a few pointers- make sure and bleed the air out, and get the most powerful 6" (maybe 8" fan... it WORKS and is blowing out 67-68 degree air. I put it by the window and the hot air is immediately neutralized and comfy!! Thanks for this plan!
I love watching people's inventions. It would seem to me( and I could be wrong) that a drop or two of clorox per gallon of water would keep mold or mildew from growing overnight. So that you'd only have to dump the water and ring out the pad a couple of times a week. Nice post. You have a great speaking voice too.
just wanted to say thank you. I built 2 I place them directly under ceiling fans while rotating jugs of ice water from the chest freezer. yesterday was 99° it stayed very cool in our home. thank you!
mistersolarpv would you say one is enough for a 30ft rv?
mistersolarpv also how cool is your house with only the swamp cooler running?
Great build. Seen much rougher versions of this exact set up, wouldn’t leak but this one gives way more peace of mind.
thanks!
You are a flippin' genius! Keep 'em coming!
Yup this works great. First one i made was back in 1984 in high school. Our scout leader taught us. i was 16.
I live in Vegas. Use swamp coolers all the time. Good idea on a small area cooler! : ) I will try this in my home shop. Kudos! : )
This is AWESOME !!! I tried and made one of these today and It really, really works.
The only thing i did is, I placed a frozen 2 liter soda bottle filled with water; to make the water colder..
I want to give props to " Desertsun02" for this kick-ass idea.
Frozen 2L bottle water is a great idea
@@happycook6737 For sure and easy to have a few in the freezer to rotate when needed.
Very nice build quality. That's awesome!
Put this in a car, and you'll save that $1200 to repair your auto a/c. If this works in your house in the HUMID South, think of how it will cool down a car. THANKS for posting!!!!!!!!! You just saved me beaucoup bucks.
To work properly it need to suck dry air from outside and blow inside of house. Also windows must be crack open so moist air will escape from rooms. Meaning the bucket should be located outdoor and air duct should be edded to unit so it will blow cold air into the house. We had residential swamp coolers installed all over Sacramento city in California. It low humidity here. Works well.
Dude that is such a great idea I'm going to make one of those this weekend it'll be perfect for the size that I need plus I'll have some tools leftover it would have cost me about $150 to buy one of those online.
In mining country around a century ago, some people would build their houses over old mine tunnel or shaft openings, then put a door over the opening. In the summer they'd open the door, and the 55 degree underground air would cool the houses very well.
I'm always amazed how even during the hottest summer days, my basement in an old house feels like it is air conditioned. I bet that kind of cooling was very efficient and I bet people who had houses situated like that had a lot of friends drop by in the summer to cool off during that era.
Hey man that was awesome, thanks for sharing!!!
This is a very simple type of a Swamp Cooler. This is actually much cheaper than what all those other guys are making and using ice in.
This is a much better way to DIY a Air cooling system.
Great job!
I would like to thank you for sharing your amazing idea great video Definitely I will make one of this units Thank you so much!
you can get the pad at home depot or lowes. the pad is an evaporative cooling pad. it is made to be used in evaporative coolers
Great idea! With the solar hook up, it may be just right for a small chicken house or rabbit room. Thanks for sharing..
Well done adding troubleshooting. Thx
I need to make a couple of these for California planned power outages. Thank you!
you're welcome!
Swamp coolers are great for dry hot western states. Very Nice!
Definitely cheaper than running an A/C unit all day and much more awesome.
Another badass video. :)
Liked...Subbed....Brilliant idea, gonna make myself one!
When the humidity is low,then this method is more benificial than regular a/c ...Say you are in the desert and the humidity is 21% heat 90 Degrees. Raising the humidity along with the fan to circulate actually makes it feel like a 'cool moist air' atmosphere . I am making for Burning Man this year.Thank's
Mike w how did it do for BM? I’m thinking about the same for this year.
Nice project!
You can freeze used water bottles and drop them in the bucket, the air will come out super cold! Keep several in your freezer so when the first ones melt, you can replace them with the other frozen ones and just keep cycling them every 4 hours.
Thanks, I found one of the self contained pumps with its own panel so I am going to try to build this.
I'm going to try this, but I want to use 1/4" soaker hose like I use in my garden drip system.
Thid gives me a idea for cooling my hydroponic solution, thanks!
Broken Eyes, would this raise the humidity in a grow tent?
THANKS FOR SHARING GREAT IDEA
thanks heaps for sharing this really cool idea. : )
You sure have a comfy looking work shop..............
Tiny Home owners could use one of these in their dream homes
I live in central Texas and we have a hobbiest greenhouse where the polycarbonate walls and roof are too efficient (yes, we're also adding shade cloth.) Commercial greenhouses I've been in use swamp coolers to cool them down so I've been especially noting the comments about the efficiency of this device in a humid environment. I've got most of these parts assembled to build this for our greenhouse. I expect to have it completed by next week. We'll have exhaust fans at the top of the greenhouse pulling the hot air from the top and will have this cooler on the ground so it could be the case that the constant exhaust will pull needed moisture out of the greenhouse which the swamp cooler will replace. Fingers crossed that it works in this application. It's an affordable experiment. I'll let everyone know how it turns out.
The pad is name dura-cool I got it at lowes it's about 5$
Its $12 nowb
@@trippzy8048qhatb?
Sweet cassette tape collection :-D
I’d also use another lid so I can direct the airflow. Kind of like a vent. Great job!
it's a good idea. one idea is to use a 90 degree elbow duct. an 8" one will fit right over the fan and direct the air sideways.
I found the fan type, it's an Auto Expressions fan for inside a car/truck.
hi there. i noticed you asked a question on another one of my evap. cooler vids. the reply button is not working on that video for some reason. (i tried 3 times). to answer your question, it won't work on the front, but should work on the back. and i'd try a box-fan if you can get one. they always work for me.
Thanks!
Still made to this day btw lol
I respect that as a chemical engineer who likes street applications !
you can either buy a small DC powered pump (many come with their own little solar panel) for complete "off grid" operation (no batteries, inverters, or charge controllers required) or get a small ac powered pump (most are very low power ~ 2 to 5 watts)
Pretty Cool idea for cooling room
Not as cool as your pun.
I like it. I'm gonna do this soon.
A nieteen degree temperatur drop is pretty good actually. It's on par woith most air conditioning units. The only thing it doesn't do is remove moisture from the air. on an unrelated not. "The faster you live your life the sooner you reach the end."
This is going to be awesome in my hunting blind.
cool idea. thanks
this is awesome
It may not be best to add ice , but, ice and a few beers would make it so much cooler!
Off topic, I know, but your voice sounds just like the actor Jason Schwartzman. Great tutorial.
Awesome 👍
So smart!!!...now just add a tiny solar panel to run that fan.
Incredible. will give a try out!. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing!! 😎
You bet! and thanks for watching 🙂👍
That's really cool
thanks!
You might be able to eliminate the pump. If you had a bucket of water above the level of the cooler, cut a small hole in the bottom of it, and use gravity to flow it to the tubing, then at the bottom of the cooler have a drain that empties into another bucket... sort of a tiered system. It will take up more room, and be a bit of a complex setup, but you eliminate the power the pump uses. But you did a great job on this one as it is. Thanks for sharing it.
But you'd have to empty your basin back into your reservoir... Pump is better
@@mitch5077
Could be.. but simple is better. Would depend on how often you needed to manually dump the water back up top. Once per day... Probably fine.. once per hour.. NO.
@@kens97sto171 I see your point of SHTF or Survival mode for simplicity! 🤟
Use the 5L bags in boxed wines.
so a bucket full of hole does have a use!
You could also add an arduino with a fluid level sensor and a lcd display tomonitor the water level. They can be added to the solar setup since it uses very little power.
I think I will make one for my next tipi!
Great tutorial, thanks for sharing. I'm going to make one of these tomorrow.
Three questions: 1) what brand and model of fan are you using? 2) what brand and model of cooling pad are you using? 3) how many gph is your pump?
Many thanks
looks like a car fan, it says auto expression on it
thank you so much!!!!
I use a bag of ice sold at the gas station and then I put salt with the ice and water. The Styrofoam is sold at Walmart's fishing section, it fits perfectly in the 5 gallon bucket. It lasts for approximately 5-6 hours and is great for one person. I made 2 more just in case the wife or kids want to use one but they never do.
The difference between that and this is you have to buy the ice. The ice ones will work anywhere. But in the Southwest they don't have to buy ice and it works just as well
So were you using a 15 watt solar panel to power this whole setup including the water pump?
I like this design even more :D!!! love you're vids man !! :D
thanks-- Home Cepot,, ordered one set!!... a cooler using a rectangular trash can would be better since the fan can be installed in the Side of the cooler to set up right next to my chair!!! Thats what I do with my AC SWamp cooler !!!
Good work, great tutorial to make one for Burning Man. I used to live in the South and the heat was driving me insane, that's why I moved to San Francisco where you can chose your weather. We dont need air conditioning, the fog takes care of the heat in summer. When it's 50F in San Francisco, it can be 108-110 F inland one hour away, at the same moment!
Yeah people poo-poo these things far too easily, but my uncle used the big roof mount ones exclusively in Arizona and California to cool the house and my experience was that the air produced by these was nice and cold. If I'm not mistaken, they refereed to them as evaporation cooler and used what are referred to as “hogs hair” pads because they allowed excellent water and air flow.
You would probably have to use filtered or distilled water (bottled) in regions with lime\calcium in the water cause that stuff is bad for clogging up the water ports… occasionally I had to climb up on the roof and clean the deposits from the drain holes in the panels. They work great in regions with dry heat, not sure how it would perform in humid climates. This size would probably be nice for a tent.
Thanks for the video................
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Y.ll😅)) 6:00 😅
Hey pal,
Curious what is the pump that you used for this? Thanks!
What if you were to run a ring (coat hanger) around the inside and hung an absorbent cloth from it away from the holes? Fill the bottom with ice (or just cold) water and then let the moisture wick up?
I would think bacteria wouldn't be a problem with the cold temperatures, but just throwing the cloth in the wash every few days would solve that. Easy to have more than one cloth to rotate out.
This is just awesome! Thanks for taking the time to teach us :o)
I think I'll be trying this. Summer dry heat its on its way here. Skin get so freaking dried inside the house.
Set it up next to another fan for an added blow back breeze efect look nice need a bigger bucket
p,s great idea and job on that cooler
This is known as a "swamp cooler" out west! Works in a dry climate! In the humid south ---- I'm not so sure!
Wanna know why they call em swamp coolers? Because you can’t use a traditional refrigeration powered a/c in a swamp, you need an evaporative cooler, aka a swamp cooler for that specific reason.
They are fairly common in humid Alabama.
hi there, i got the fan at walmart. made by a company called auto/expressions or "ae". part #83106. definitely worth getting this fan if you can. seems to put out 2 or 3 times the amount of air as a standard small desk fan.
desertsun02 Thanks for the heads up.
Other uses would be to create a plus pressures in your house, which also pushes dust out and filters your air quality. But the unit needs to be outside and the outlet blowing air in.
now quadruple the size using a 50 gal plastic drum and high velocity fan and u can do a whole house!
Only if you are Tim the Tool Man Taylor. Or you can move to Niagara Falls.
Going from 5 to 50 gallons would be an increase of 10x.
Very educational....however.....I think you need a new hole-saw brotherman. LOL.
Thanks for the video.
FYI. If you add some salt and ice to the water it will lower the water temp below 32 without freezing the water. You should be able to lower the temp to about 27-29 degrees. It's not much but every little bit helps when trying to cool.
Evaporation is what cools, not the temperature of the water. You might get a temporary boost from adding ice, but the machine producing the ice generates heat, a LOT of heat. Also, salt corrodes. The only way to get more cooling is to evaporate more water.
@@TopGunMan Wise man you are. Ice heats up water.
hi there, since it relies on evaporation it works best in dry or semi-dry climates.
I make it done from 350 liter of drum & its very nicely working thank you @desertsum02 thanks for the idea...love from India 🇮🇳 🙏
appreciable
How about a list of the items in the description I'm aware you say what you used to make it but like the kind of pump you used and where you got everything
bruh just buy swamp cooler online it will be way better and they are cheap
@@User-je7gf this is a swamp cooler, just DIY & less expensive.
Wow. Posted 5 years ago and still no reply.
@@TabooX1984 5 gallon bucket, Home Depot or Lowes - the padding is called Dura-cool, also HD or L - the pump can be picked up in any store's garden department along with the hose so the only real trick is finding the fan but that's just a small, cheap desk fan with the brackets removed so figure you can find it in any department store, possibly a hardware store, meaning that HD or L could be a one stop shopping for this.
Of course, you should've drilled the holes first, and THEN added the water. I saw the plastic scraps floating around in the bucket. I would like the exact brand and model number of that fan. Seems like a perfect fit.
+supercyberfunk I think it's easier to clean up later if the bucket has water inside.
I think he put in water first just to know where the water line would be.
And the weight held the bucket in place when he drilled
ya but i would have just added the water and mark it then pour it out and drilled it outside
I agree. Drill and then fill after you clean the bits out. Don’t need them blocking the holes in the line if the pump sucks them up.
you should add the specs on the type of pump that is ideal for this build in the video even if we only text over the video.
you can freeze water bottles throw them in the bucket of water and drop that temp even more use to do that with our swamp cooler when I was a kid
Awesome
Pro tip,drill holes first,then add water.
hi there, nope, you don't have to connect it to a water supply. the water is being pumped up from the bottom half of the bucket. it will hold about 2 gallons of water at a time. you just fill it every few hours.
great job, but what size pv did you use 20 watt, 50 watt??? just a suggestion about slowing bacteria growth, add a little dish soap to the water. thank you
C. T. Murray dish soap will foam up. Use hydrogen peroxide
This guy lives out west were it is dry and swamp coolers are popular and actually work, here in Florida were it is dry you would need to add a lot of ice to get a decent cooling effect.
florida is anything but dry thus why it dont work
Where did you lace the wires through?
thanks
How are the temps compared to a 'ice bucket' cooler? I get the evaporation temperature drop thing, but I just wonder how does it compare with the ice system. The evaporation is much easier (especially for those who don't have a big freezer) to maintain but harder to build. So yes, just wondering and curious about the results. I have seen DIY ice bucket coolers reaching a 4 celsius (40 fahrenheit more or less).
Do you connect the pump and fan together in one wire circuit and then have one connection to the power source?