A great reply Ray, I am wondering if you do green-house calls? *g*
I need help with mine too. I have a swamp cooler that runs on a thermostat
& timer. I have vents that open with those Bayliss heat sensitive
contraptions? Also have a fan that pulls fresh air in at night.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers Wendy

On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 08:33:23 -0400, Ray wrote:

Lori,

Just a couple of comments:

If the Jaybird unit is inside the greenhouse, it won't do a lot of good for
cooling. Evaporative cooling is negatively affected by increased humidity,
so the basic scenario is that when it is first turned on, the fogger cools
the relatively dry air in the GH. As it continues to work however, the RH
is increased and the cooling effect is decreased, so that at some point you
get a negligible cooling effect. Even if the vents are open to let in
drier, fresh air, it still is better for humidification than for cooling.

I went to the AdobeAir website and looked at the one picture I could find of
the Whispercool shop cooler (I didn't see a model number), and if the one
you're looking at is like the one on wheels in the garage, I would recommend
placing it outside of the greenhouse and venting the output in rather than
placing it in the GH and hoping it will take in enough outside air to do the
trick. Placing it inside sets up more-or-less the same situation as is
happening with the fogger.

Also, in my own experience, if a swamp cooler is used, you get a better
overall cooling effect if you only have sufficient venting open to directly
relieve the input from the cooler. In other words, if the fan on the swamp
cooler blows 2000cfm into the greenhouse, the outlet vents should be close
to only allowing that volume to leave. Having lots of other ventilation
open allows a lot more hot, outside air in. Folks who use power ventilation
and swamp coolers (or wet walls) end up drawing 100% of their ventilation
air in through the cooler.

In the first greenhouse I had with a swamp cooler, the 3500 cfm blower blew
into the GH from one end, and I closed all of the vents except for the
2-foot square screen in the door, and I'm sure I could have gone with less
of an opening.