Ah, the swamp cooler: a fixture in homes in our part of the country and virtually unheard of elsewhere. A swamp cooler wouldn’t work in some climates. Its name is a bit deceptive, as a damp swampy area would not be ideal for its installation. Rather, a swamp cooler is perfect for a dry, hot climate like we have in New Mexico.
But a swamp cooler isn’t perfect. Unfortunately, there are certain circumstances, even in our dry climate, in which a swamp cooler can struggle to work properly. Can you count on your cooling system to work when you need it most?
Swamp coolers
When you have a swamp cooler, conventional advice for maintaining an AC just doesn’t work. Refrigerated air conditioning systems run a lot differently than swamp coolers (or evaporative coolers), and they may be less convenient to use, but you can usually do the requisite preseason maintenance on your own.
Evaporative coolers, known as swamp coolers, are more common here than in most parts of the country, but there’s still some confusion about how they actually work. Most people are accustomed to either a swamp cooler or a traditional central AC, so they’ve never really needed to think about the components involved in the cooling process.