Every year after I prep my swamp cooler for another summer - clean, lube,
new pads, etc. - I notice that when I first turn on the blower I get a
large amount of grit/dust blown into my house. Where does this come from?
Pieces of fiber from the pads? Flakes of calcium from my hard well water?
Is there an easy way to catch these so they won't blow into the house?
Any way to avoid them? I see this sometimes during the summer when the
cooler has been off a few days too.

TIA


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"Ken Knecht" wrote in message
...
Every year after I prep my swamp cooler for another summer - clean, lube,
new pads, etc. - I notice that when I first turn on the blower I get a
large amount of grit/dust blown into my house. Where does this come from?
Pieces of fiber from the pads? Flakes of calcium from my hard well water?
Is there an easy way to catch these so they won't blow into the house?
Any way to avoid them? I see this sometimes during the summer when the
cooler has been off a few days too.

TIA


Ahhhh. Time of year again to duel with the swampers. I got two. Next time
up there, pull a pad. Look through any of the others and see how much sky
you can see. This is just a big opening where dust can blow in during the
winter and when the cooler is off during the summer. Plus, when you service
it, you knock stuff loose. Two things you can do: First, cover your cooler
in winter. Second, some have a slider piece of sheet metal you can insert
to cut off the air duct plenum.

Steve

Turn on the pump for a few minutes before turning on the blower. This
will cut down some of the loose stuff. Tom

On Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:34:05 GMT, Ken Knecht
wrote:

Every year after I prep my swamp cooler for another summer - clean, lube,
new pads, etc. - I notice that when I first turn on the blower I get a
large amount of grit/dust blown into my house. Where does this come from?
Pieces of fiber from the pads? Flakes of calcium from my hard well water?
Is there an easy way to catch these so they won't blow into the house?
Any way to avoid them? I see this sometimes during the summer when the
cooler has been off a few days too.

TIA

You are not the first I've heard problems like this, and previously
interested in duct cleaning, I've learned this:

I was told that when you first clean out pads, you take out the old
ones that were restricting air flow. As the old ones get older, the
air flow decreases allowing for 'stuff' to become settled out. When
you put in a new pad, now the air flow is full power, and will blow
out the 'stuff' that has previously settled.

I've heard DIY ways to prepare for this, one I thought the funniest:
If you have one duct into the house, tape on an old set of panty-hose.
Start the system up, bang on the unit and the exposed duct work, and
then remove the pantyhose when all the loose material has left the
duct.

hth, imho,

tom @ www.NoCostAds.com