Steve B wrote:

Well, it's the spring ritual in Las Vegas again.

Swamp cooler prep.

This year, my pads look like Carlsbad Caverns. Very thick with white and
yellow hard crud.

I really believe that the water is from the hose bibb loop, and not from the
water softener that provides water to the rest of the house. I could be
mistaken, though. But, it seems to me that softened water would have less
minerals in it, and if it were to be soft water, there would be less crud
buildup. Am I right?

Water softeners generally replace calcium ions with sodium ions, so
you'll just get different kinds of salts. Dunno if they're easier to
clean than the calcium scale.


I bought one of those automatic things that empty the water every day and
lets new water in. Do those work? I bought it two years ago and never
installed it.

They reduce but don't eliminate salt deposits. On a hot, dry day, a
swamp cooler can evaporate several gallons of water per hour. If your
water is hard, as it usually is in hot, dry climates, the water gets
briny pretty fast, and those minerals accumulate in the pads during a
season. A bleeder between the pump and the pads keeps the water fresher
than daily flushing, but it also consumes significantly more water. (No
free lunch.)


Do the pads make a difference? I hate working with excelsior. One year I
used some pricey blue stuff, and it lasted two years. At the end of the
first year, I power washed it clean, but it didn't seem to have the
absorbency or cooling effect the second season.

Last year, I used some honeycomb looking slightly greenish tinged paper/wood
product stuff. Heavy, heavy buildup.

I know that this is a yearly thing. I grew up here.

But, what are some things that I can do so that there is not so much
buildup, it is easier to rehab every year, and, of course, to get the max
degree of cooling? In addition to the questions asked above.

The single-inlet jobs use a deep, honeycomb-style fiber pad with large
holes that don't clog with scale nearly as quickly and can last several
years, but that design requires higher air velocity through the pad and
doesn't work as well in a standard multi-pad units.

My observation is that nobody's come up with substantial improvements in
pad or cooler design, no matter what the advertising claims. They're all
about the same in cooling efficiency, and they all require a lot of
maintenance.