So what effect do you think shading and insulating a swamp cooler might have on its temperature? I suggest you do some testing yourself to see.
I have a side-draft metal swamp cooler that is roughly a 36” cube.
Although I’ve done nothing scientific, I did a few things to see what changes might occur.
- The cooler sits on the south side of the building in full view of the sun. There is a tall wall to the south of that, but with the sun higher in the sky in the summertime, it plays no role in shading the cooler.
- I keep a digital hygrometer connected to the front grill to monitor the temperature of the cooled air as it enters the interior of the building. At night the temperature of the cooled air will get down to 54-degrees (you don’t want to be standing in front of it without long sleeves). During the heat of the day, it is a different story. Of course, low humidity is the key to cold comfortable air in the building.
- With the cooler off and the sun beating on it (the high temperature that day was 103), the hygrometer read 98 degrees at the mouth of the cooler. I set a piece of ¾” polyiso insulation board on the top of the cooler and 10 minutes later the meter read 88 degrees. Not bad. Realize that I was not running the cooler at this point.
- I will be playing with getting temperature readings of shading and non-shading and posting them in the future.
Just remember that if you are going to be shading your cooler, don’t block or restrict the areas where the air enters the cooler.