keeping the ship cool

conditioned air in the northern Sonoran desert

i live in what is now mostly called Tucson in the southern part of what is now known to many as the state of Arizona (it is and has always been Oʼodham land, baby). This little plot is situated in the Bronx Park neighborhood just north of downtown, the runoff from this lovely parcel of paradise runs to the Bronx Wash before making its way to the Santa Cruz River. In studying what historic aerial images are publicly available I have a strong suspicion that the mature mesquite trees in the yard have been around since this area was undeveloped wash flood plains. Our house was built in 1934, along with about 30% of the neighborhood being built in this era. The rest of the houses were built as infill on subdivided lots in and around Y2K. ok, sorry, just setting the scene. we are in the Sonoran Desert, the northernmost reaches of the biome and its arid extremity. it is hot. in the summer from late April through October it can be pretty volatile and warm, especially if you are like me and would prefer to be about 72 degrees all the time (island boi).

i thought i would make a little blogger about the mechanical and organic tactics we have been deploying around the house to make these hot months more pleasant. in case you are curious.

disclaimer: i came into adulthood under the loose supervision of an eclectic crowd of bio nerds, anarchist bike mechanics, vegan zinesters, and smelly smelly dr bronners punkx. DIY fix shit up vibes. as i get older i’m trying to be more intentional about leaning in to these youthful proclivities and sharing whatever experiences seem useful to other dorkus molorkii out there on this abismally saturated web 3.0

Trees! Graywater from the laundry, rainwater from the cister, hose water from the spigot when im feeling sinister are all liberally applied to establish a LUSHIZ canopy of shade. Heavy second helpings of free arborist woodchips are applied liberally (like nooch on popcorn everything!) to keep the soil from cooking. We’ve been tending this garden for about 3 years and it is now finally starting to look like its about to start to go off. SHADE & MULCH (which is really just dirt shade).

To the roof! ok, so we have a “built up” flat roof w/ parapet wall. This is coated in a white refelctive elastomeric coating to reflect heat off the surface, it is quite effective by itself! The next line of defense are solar panels, which completely shade the roof surface under the panels, while at the same time generating electricty to power the entire house (while the sun is blasting, so like 8-6 in the summer). That little cute box to the left of the scene is a heat-pump min-split air conditioner (it heats and cools). my lord and savior during the humid monsoon months, this thing is a champ. Daikin from my favorite town Osaka, but i believe these units are made in Texas. game changer.

so a single wall mounted air exchanger is in our back “office” room. we just keep all the doors open and it can cool/heat the whole house (700 sq ft). when the sun is shining and this unit is blasting we still feed power back to the grid, which apparently is used immediately by our neighbors and doesn’t really go back to the grid. keeping it local. a worthy investment in my opinion and much more efficient and affordable than adding ductwork, ideal for our small goofy old house. EcoClima did the install, 5 stars.

so this is the elusive “swamp cooler”. these evaporative coolers are very popular in the desert, and relatively unheard of elsewhere. they are beautiful machines, kind of like a beach cruiser bicycle with kick brakes. They are pretty “dumb”, which i love, basically a giant box that circulates water via a small pump through this wood shaving pads that soak up water and then a big rotary fan fulls outside air through the pads and pushes the now humid and cooler air through your home via a vent. Like a cool old shrimp-boat, they are bomb proof, kind of always falling apart, but simple enough to be continually fixing and funking around with. a DIY tinkerer’s frienemy.

there is a switch, typically somewhere weird, ours is in the bedroom closet. this switch activates the pump and the fan, or both at the same time. that is it. so when it is HOT and DRY outside it works like a charm and somewhat violently pushes 30 degree cooler and now humid air through the house, which you in turn vent by creating drafts via cracking windows and doors in rooms you want the air to flow through. like a sailboat, kinda, hands-on and simple but can take you anywhere if you got the gusto to play.

the swamp cooler has no thermostat, again you just turn it on or off, so we monitor the conditions inside the house using an analog max/min thermometer mounted in the living room.

and i made a chart to reference the potential of the swamp based on outside temps and humidity. if it is too humid outside we switch to the mini-split. if it is too cool outside we turn off the pump and just use the fan to bring cool nightime air into the house. like an ocean breeze.

it is a bicycle. if an AC was a crust punk, it would be a swamp cooler.

this is the recycled door that i just installed to the office. We can close this door and then have the office be cooled by the mini-split and the rest of the house be cooled by the swamp. convenient when someone likes to be 15 degrees cooler than the other and you still want to live together during the summer in peace, love, and harmony. the big patch to the left of the frame is from where i tore out the gas wall mounted furnace (we are trying to get rid of the gas line eventually and run everything of electricty, primarily solar).

the mini split was installed to be directly inline with the bedroom through the bathroom when both doors are open. it works quite well.

other cooling techniques we have been slow to deploy are curtains! finally all the windows now have these ikea roman style curtains. i like em, simple and affordable solution.

during a hot summer day you can get nikid and take a bath in the stock tank and then drain the water to the citrus trees, the cooling effects are remarkable even with warmish water.

back yard status (June 2024)

front yard status (June 2024)

thats all folks.

if you have any questions at all about any of this stuff, happy to nerd out wit you, just leave a comment below.

peace & love,

free palestine!

-e