God, I miss central AC!
 

My house is cooled with an evaporative cooler, as most of the houses are in the desert. They're incredibly efficient and also incredibly evil to get up and running for the season. I dread this time of year.

* Go to Home Depot and get new pads.
* Climb onto the roof
* Curse about the 3 layers of skin the shingles just ripped off my arms from climbing onto the second peak while my central AC having neighbors watch me.
* Realize it's a long way down. Breathe.
* Take off the cover and toss it to the driveway only to have it land on the dormer instead.
* Oil the motor and drum
* Realize that for the second year in a row you got the wrong size pads (why can't these things be universal?)
* Climb down, (damn shingles), retrieve the cover, return the pads and get the right size.
* Get back onto the roof and attempt to replace the pads.
* Remove another 2 layers of skin
* Realize you forgot to turn on the water.
* Climb down, go to the basement, turn on the water, climb back up (more skin) and wait 30 minutes for the base to fill up.
* Climb down, turn on the pump and return to the roof to check the nozzles are soaking the pads.
* Realize one of them is plugged (ACK!)
* *sigh* climb down (*&#%! shingles!), turn off the pump, and get a piece of wire to unblock the water lines.
* Get back on the friggin roof and clear all the water lines. Entertain the idea of installing metal roofing
* Climb back down (I'm a skeleton now) and turn on the pump for the second time.
* Yep.... back to the roof, verify the pads are wetting down, adjust the float to keep the water from overflowing (again) and take a break.
* Satisfied, climb back down while shouting profanities that would embarrass a sailor as the neighbors watch.
* Remove the insulating pillow, vacuum the chute, replace the diffuser and turn on the cooler.
* Wait 20 minutes and get a jacket because you are now freezing. (it might have something to do with the missing flesh claimed by the roof)
* 1 hour later, discover the float isn't shutting the water off and it's overflowing again.
* Turn off the cooler, shut off the water and decide to deal with it tomorrow. (note: wear long sleeves)

I swear... if it weren't for the fact that I ran this thing maybe 10 times last year and never paid more than $30/month increase on my power, I'd be installing central air.

LOL :D girl you have about had me rolling, I don't know when i have laughed so much..I do hope that you can get it fixed tomorrow

Oh it just keeps getting better.

Hubby comes home just after I typed all that.

Hubby: "Why's it so hot in here? I thought you were going to get the swamp cooler up today?"
Me: *Glare*
Hubby: "What?! It's like an oven in here."
Me: *unamused look*

(He's probably not going to live through the night.)

Is his insurance paid up :D

Why yes! Yes it is, in fact!

Sometimes, I don't know how we manage to coexist. He's the reason I was forced to develop a sense of humor about things like this.

I was laughing so hard reading your posts I can hardly type this. GET THE CENTRAL A-C & be done with this, woman! It's only money. ;) Besides, why are you doing this? This definitely sounds like a honey-do thingy to me.

We don't have ac at work or at home!!! Imagine being busy at work with a bunch of people waiting, watching over you, and no ac. Boo!

LOL thats sounds like a husband. I hope you get it up and running it sounds like warmer temps are on the way

I was cracking up reading your post! And then your husband says it hot well DUH!!!!!

He's owns a landscaping company. He's more of a 2 feet on the ground kinda guy. In fact, I'm starting to question that. In his defense, he doesn't know anything about swamp coolers. Neither do I but I figure things out pretty well.

8am and I've already made 3 trips to the roof. the float valve isn't working. As in, it's not shutting off no matter how much you adjust it. So I drain it to keep it from overfilling and dripping down the chute, into the house.
*sigh* this involves another trip to Home depot for a $5 part. I might as well get a new pump while I'm at it. He's on the ground, pruning and watering plants in the yard and yells up "there's a lot of water coming down!" Ya think? Hmmm I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I pulled the plug?

Omgosh that's too funny!

Lol, too funny :D! Right now, I'm very grateful for my AC, since it's going to be a billion degrees here today.

Most times, I love doing projects w/ my hubby. And then other times, like when he doesn't realize I'm totally 100% correct and he's not....that's when things get dicey. For him, not me :D.

That made me soooo glad we don't need AC since we stay cool here on the coast.
Your job sounds like a two or three man type of job. Hope you don't need skin grafts. :D

I live in Connecticut and never heard of a swamp cooler. I just got back from visiting my daughter in Albuquerque, NM where the majority of houses do have swamp coolers (luckily my daughter has central air). The houses are very close and you can sit in the living room and see the neighbors roofs. I have to confess that I watched the neighbor on his roof the entire afternoon playing with his swamp cooler and thought central air would be so much easier.

Gurl I'm dying with laughter up here.....thank you soo much...I needed a good laugh after the day i had! BTW what in the world is a swamp cooler??:confused: I thought the States was civilized...up here in Canada we have AC...you might want to check that out! LOL!! Lord that was funny!

HA! I had no idea what a swamp cooler was either LOL. Deadbug-did you ever get it working?

Deadbug are you mad....lol! Did you get whatever that thing is to work?

Well...

I got the parts. They're sitting here on the kitchen counter. That's as far as I got with the whole idea. Admittedly, I'm not too keen on getting back on the roof. At least, not until some skin grows back. Getting ready for my day this morning, he actually asked me what happened, why my arms, legs and stomach look like someone drug me behind a car.

He's not going to live long. We're talking a few days here and that's only because I'm beat.

Dh took down the fence and bulldozed my backyard this afternoon. I was really afraid I was going to get sucked into that, so I found a place to hide.
My sewing room is in the basement. It's nice and cool down there without any mechanical intervention.

I'm good!

well since he bulldozed your backyard he helped you out...now you have a place to bury him!!! lol!! Have a glass of wine just chill for a bit and wait for your skin to come back...then you can figure out what to do with hubby...oh and the swamp thingy you were trying to install! You know you could "HAG"!! (hire a guy)...

This thread just reminded me that I need to get the A/C fixed for my tenants. I'm sooo bummed... my central air in my condo that I rent out broke about Sept last year and I'm so afraid of what this bill is going to be! uugghhh

I had never heard of a swamp cooler before so I looked it up. According to wikipedia:
Apparently they never had to fix your swamp cooler! How much does it cost to have a service do it? That seems a lot easier.

I think central air has to be a miracle of Heaven straight from the Mind of God! It is my favorite invention in the world. I'm sitting here with it humming along, so cool & comfortable. No finer invention was EVER conceived! I cannot imagine how in the world people used to live & work & go about their lives without it!!! They were a tougher lot than I am! It must have been miserable back then. Ugh. I sure hope your get your cooler going before this weekend if it's going to be very hot there. And be sure the insurance premium has been paid! ;)

Amen, sistah:thumbup: I wonder if that's why everyone looks so miserable in any photos from "the olden days":laugh: No one ever smiled:p

It's close to 92 here today and I'm very thankful for AC after reading your post!:D

Here we go.... Round 2.

I guess there really is a first for everything in life. From the most minute of scenarios to ones that are the size of Mars. You can bet, no matter what, there's definitely a first.

This is the first time I've ever gotten my butt kicked by an appliance. Temps on the rise here in the Wasatch Mountains meant that I could no longer procrastinate getting the *&!%! swamp cooler up and running. Yesterday, it managed to hit a sultry 100 degrees and I felt like a ham in an oven. I've had the parts laying here since the first time I lost this battle, so here we are again.

I make the dreaded ascend to the peak of the roof yet again. Climbing up there is certainly not my favorite sport. I'm more of a spectator when it comes to athletics. With that being said, any valiant efforts are usually out of necessity for survival, not self torture and, in this case, self mutilation.

Now confidence in the attempt of any dangerous or difficult task is key. Most often, if you take a deep, cleansing breath and tell yourself "I can do this", thou shall be done. (Disclaimer: this doesn't always work but it's a great motivator.) In this case, someone set a nuclear bomb under my confidence pad and basically blew it into space.

I get up there.... again. I replace the float valve to control the amount of water coming into the unit and the water pump just because I understand Murphy's law. If I don't do it now, I'm going back up there next week when it breaks. I don't want to do that. So I err on the side of caution.

"This is a simple job." you say.
"What could go wrong?" you say.

Well let me just tell you what went wrong!

I return to the inside parameters of the house, all smug and blown up that "huh! I fixed it!" Turn on the water line and wait patiently for the basin to fill. 30 minutes later I kick her on full speed. It was hotter than 7 hells combined, so I've been waiting for this moment. HA! She's blowing the coldest air I've ever felt and good lord did it ever feel good. 30 minutes later, I'm nestled under a blanket with icicles hanging off my eyebrows. Whatever! I wasn't hot anymore!

Then it happened. My son calls down to me "Mom! Gabby pee'd in the hallway!"

*sigh* I had to look. Why did I look? I was comfortable. I just wanted to stay where I was. But I look. "That's not pee! It's water!"

@&$^%!
*&@^#$%!!
!&%@^#$*!!!

I instantly became an artist in profanity. I sculpted and molded every word as though it were pottery. Delicately blending vowels and consonants together in a fashion that would make Satan blush.

The swamp cooler was leaking again. This means another trip to the dreaded roof. Evil never sleeps.

*Deep cleansing breath*

Yet again... I make the ascend. I have no idea what's wrong or what I'm going to do when I get back up there, but I sacrifice more flesh for the sake of comfort. 3 more trips up and down and 3 more deposits of my DNA on the shingles of the roof. By the time I was done I looked like a college kid who was thrown in the bramble bushes during hazing. That is, minus the youthful appearance.

The diagnosis? There's a hole in the pan where water is leaking out, onto the roof and getting down along side of the chute into the house.

I can weld a new piece of sheet metal into the bottom of the pan. Kind of like a liner and then reseal it with roofing tar. That will probably hold it for another few years.

I'm going to rock, paper scissors my hubby for who gets to drag the welder to the roof. I'm anticipating at least another 4-5 trip up there before this is over.

Thank god it's cool today! Although, that's not helping my efforts or motivation to get it fixed any.

On the bright side, I got my dog bed from Normarae63 today!
The mailman wasn't nearly as excited as I was. I didn't see him pull up with my package and come to the door. After all, I was on the roof. From what I gather, he rang the doorbell just about the same time I pulled the plug on the swamp cooler. Nothing like having 15 gallons of water dumped on you while you're trying to deliver a package.

(I really have to replace that rain gutter)

Sweet Jesus!!!! Deadbug seriously you crack me up...I'm sitting here holding my sides and wiping my eyes, with my two babies looking at me like WTH is wrong with you??? Dear Lord tooooo funny. I'm sorry *sniffle, cackle* I'm really not laughing at you...honestly I'm not..* gaffaw!*

OMG:laugh: I swear, you need to put these all together in a book. You're better than Erma Bombeck:D

The whole thing sounds like a flipping nightmare, though:( Sure you don\'t wanna just install A/C?:p I am cringing thinking of you scrapihg yourself up some more:eek:

Oh, my goodness!:eek::D:(:confused::rolleyes::cool:

I don\'t wanna miss the rest of the story.:D

I miss some days having a swamp cooler, cheaper and sometimes way colder than a/c....but then agian......maybe not. Your awesome for working on the swamp cooler much less the roof !!!