Evaporative Water Coolers - How good are swamp coolers?

Will be building a +/- 3000 sq. ft house in Western Colorado, near Grand Junction area. Though the house is at 7200 feet, it can still get a little warm during the summer. A lot of houses in the area use swamp coolers. Being from te east I know little about these things. Could someone educate me about these things? I understand the principle, but would like to know how effective it might be in the area I'll be building?

I lived in Pagosa Springs a while and I think the humidity level in Grand Junction and Pagosa are similar. Swamp coolers are most effective in a low humidity climate which is what I think you have. I know it's low in Pagosa and they work great there.

Hi, I have one and it works good. i live in the hi desert of socal. it gets warm in the summer. if the humidity gets high it may be a little stickey but it is not too bad. check evapcoolerstodaydotcom it has good info and a list of cooler makers on how to size your cooler to your house. I found the way a cooler is sized you take the sqft.of the house x8' celing= cuft of the house take the cuft of the house and divide by 2= cfm. i hope this helps you out.

Hey there, I grew up in Southern California and we has a swamp cooler in the house as a kid. It's not going to get your place cold like a traditional AC would, but it makes the house real comfortable. I know that after a while minerals would build up on the filters that the water trickled down on and the house would have this wonderful cave/new rain smell of wet earth. Some people may not like it but it's one of my favorite smells. You're probably supposed to change the filters before they build up mineral deposits, but we were poor ;)

I'm in AZ and I wouldn't live without it. A/C's are too dry and leads to sinus problems for some. With an evap I can leave doors and windows open. A couple months a year the humidity climbs to over 54% with reduces the evaps cooling potential - but I've been ok with it higher.

I got a master cool about 3 years ago with 8" pads (they come with 12" too) and run it 8 months a year with no problems. I strongly recomend the cleaner they offer optional. It dumps the water out every 8 hours, reducing the calcium build up. Because of that I can use the water in my garden without any problems. They have improved evaps quite a bit over the last few years and they are enviromentaly friendly - use quite a bit less water than A/C use for electricity. Several states offerred rebates because of the reduced needs (California was one).

My electric/water bills are over 50% less with the evap or A/C, plus the additional benefits of being more comfortable and enviromentaly freindly as bonuses. See if your utility offers a rebate.