Hey, many of my Southern Ohio, KY, IND folk will be there. I'll tell them to look for your yurt!

Swamp coolers **utterly rock** when coupled with hexayurts. There are some commercial units for about $100 which take about 50 watts of power each. You could feasibly run them from solar panels.

Wouldn't that rock???

PS: Hi Spiral, good to see you man!

Here are links for the various pieces that I am using to assemble my swamp cooler. (All 12VDC, off my solar panel)
www.southwest-solar.com/produc...t.nhtml Scroll down to "KarlKool 312" to get an idea of what kind of simple storage/filing box you can start with.

For me, the fan is critical. It needs to have a long duty cycle (not burn out from high speed use) and have sufficient CFM's to move the air both through the "cooling media of your choice" like Cel-Dek which is harder to find but very efficient and long lasting. I am going with a Shurflo Marine Blower 4inch. They can be found for about $35 at your local boating store (part #277-4110) They are hardy fans that are designed to take the rigorous abuse that a wet environment on a boat can throw at it. At full speed, they have about a 215CFM rating which is a lot of air and is more than sufficient for the small or stretch hexayurt. I will be hooking up a dimmer like switch to the fan to control the speed.

I also decided to place the swamp cooler outside and run blower hose (which slips on easily of the blower flange) into the side of the hexayurt with a diffuser panel. This solves one problem and creates another. First, it reduces the noise level of the fan (I don't know the exact db rating, but it can be loud at full speed, and I want to sleep comfortably in a quiet yurt) But you now expose the intake of the cooler to dusty air, thus caking your cooling media and the water it is sitting in. A simple fix for this is using the same 3M Filtrete furnace filters (600/1000 rating) that I use on my windows to stop all dust from getting in. If the cooler is placed inside the yurt, just place it up against your filtered window and it will suck clean air through that, plus recycle some of the air in the yurt. I already have a small computer fan in my roof that sucks hot air out the ceiling to keep air moving within the yurt.

Now for the innards...I scrounged up a small used pump from a waterfall/lamp in my house. www.jebao.com/english/displayproduct.php
Again, this will be powered by the same 12VDC, which I will connect to some clear aquarium hose that I drill small holes into, and drape it over the cooling media so that is keeps a constant supply of water flowing over the media. And to deal with the evaporation issue, I will "automate" the water refill process as follows...you can place a small 1 gallon container of water (sealed from the elements of course & elevated for flow) next to the swamp cooler. You run tubing from the bottom of the bucket (simple valve/stopcock) to a connector in the side of your swamp cooler that has a small float valve inside, regulating where your water line is. As the water evaporates, the float drops (like in your toilet) and the bucket drains water into your swamp cooler. Voila!

It's a very simple technology and really once you got a motor to power the fan and pump it is super easy to build one.

The only issue I have with building one now is getting the solar panel to work and outputing enough energy to turn a fan motor and keeping it working after or during a dust storm. With proper filtering it shouldn't be that hard, but the wet pads would probably have to be cleaned up after a storm - possibly replaced. Using biodegradeable straw pads is an option for replacement and also using cooler melt water or filtered gray water from bathing and cleaning.

Hopefully I'll have a better working idea of how this will work after FS - it may not be quite as hot as the playa, but it gets pretty toasty down here. The Hill Country humidity will play a factor - but while I was growing up in the area we used swamp coolers very effectively in the summer.

I posted some photos of the cooler I described in the post above.

I'm curious as to how exactly you worked out the folding issue; and I'd like to hear how it has worked out for you in the desert this year.

Eric

So the verdict is this system doesn't work? what about more air flow via more exhaust fans? I was thinking 3 computer fans. I'm kind of excited to try a similar set up, powered by a solar/battery system, but don't want to build a "sauna".