I have no way of telling how much water my swamp cooler actually uses. When
it runs it pumps the water back over the aspen wood pads. It pumps a small
amount of water out into the drain so there isn't a mineral buildup.

When I started the Greenhouse 5 years ago I did not see a big increase in
the waterbill. I don't think the water usage is much.

Gene




"Manelli Family" wrote in message
...

"Gene Schurg" wrote in message
news:R8gAi.4157$yv3.34@trndny01...
Yeah....somehow you never know how much a greenhouse would cost until you
build one!

As a point of reference....in the DC area yesterday it was about as humid
as it can get and the air temp was 100F. The min/max thermometer in my
greenhouse was 86.7 degrees as a high. That is about the hottest the GH
has been all summer and we have had a couple of days in the high 90s. I
have 50% shade cloth on it right now and use tap water in the Swamp
Cooler. Tap water is very warm this time of year so the cool is mostly
coming from the air movement and the evaporation.

Can you tell me approximately how many gallons of water a day your SC
uses?


Good growing,
Gene




"Manelli Family" wrote in message
...

"K Barrett" wrote in message
news I used a lot of the advice from Charley's greenhouse when I built my GH.
I've provided a link to their tips page. I used their formulas to
calculate how large a swamp cooler (evaporative cooler) I'd need as well
as how large a heater. My GH was 8x16 and I put Charley's swamp cooler
in it which was over kill, but when I expanded the GH to 8 x 30 I didn't
have to get a larger cooler. It still works fine.

http://www.charleysgreenhouse.com/index.cfm?page=_tips

OK. I checked them out. The air here is not dry but quite humid from
spring to fall. It's only dry in the winter but the plants still
thrived even with the 20 to 30% humidity. Wetting the gravel in winter
with the hose would bring it up to maybe 40 or 45% for a few hours -
when the hose wasn't frozen. Then I'd use a 1g spray bottle. These
swamp coolers wouldn't help much as they only drop the temps down 5 to
10F for the affordable one. That's not much when you're dealing with
120/130+ all summer long. Also, I don't know how many sq. feet the Rion
is because of the roof shape. The larger SC is $590 and needs a
constant water supply. Blasting the limestone to run a line is cost
prohibitive as is this cooler. We've already spent a lot more than we
figured on on the Rion GH, what with all the gravel, cement, rebar,
bubblewrap, shade-cloth, fans, heaters, extra weather stripping etc.
etc... etc... ad infinitum................