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A Video Look At How We Are Solar Cooling Our Home

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Solar Cooling - Build A Solar Evaporative Cooler

Solar CoolerAre you tired of paying high electric bills in the summer just to cool your home?

Do you think you can't use solar power with your existing home? Are you tired of wanting to make a difference, but not knowing how?

Well, you can make a difference!

If you live in a relatively dry climate, and have basic skills, you can make a solar cooler just like we did.

Using solar cooling will save you money on your electric bill each month that you use it. The cost of making the solar cooler can be returned in a short period of time with the savings.

We did it and so can you. We have put together a nice set of instructions showing how we made our solar cooler. The instructions are simple and easy to follow. They are in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format and can be viewed and saved right from this site. Just click on the link below and hit the save button. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the plans.

We have sold these plans for $ 9.95 in the past but are now making them available to everyone without charge on one condition.

If you download the plans and use them to make your own cooler, please make a donation for our efforts. We would like to continue making this site available to everyone. Your donation will help do so.

So what are you waiting for? You CAN be part of the solution!

Watch our short video showing our solar cooler

Click here to view the PDF file

Since we use solar energy to heat our passive solar home in the winter, we wondered if we could use the sun to cool our home in the summer. Knowing that a compressor type air conditioning system would require more electricity than we could generate, we wanted an alternative solar cooling source, a solar air conditioner if you will. Being familiar with evaporative coolers and living in an area with a dry climate, I made a solar cooler using easily purchased parts to cool our 1600 square foot home.

I used an existing evaporative cooler since all the important components were already there. I mounted a 12 volt radiator fan in front of the existing opening and left the existing AC pump, motor and squirrel cage intact. Having 110 Volt AC power available, I can use the existing AC pump and motor in the evening to continue cooling the house. The solar cooler has performed well with the items left in place.

If you are not familiar with evaporative coolers, click this link to Adobe Air to see a very good explanation of how they work from the manufacturer of the unit that we used to make our solar cooler.

Afternoon summer temperatures range between 85° to 95° in this part of California. Although smaller than needed for our house size, the solar cooler does a good job of keeping the house cool. With the solar cooling modifications, it maintains a temperature difference of about 15° between the outside and the inside.

I use a 110 watt panel that is mounted on a tracker to provide power to the solar cooler. The solar panel and tracker are mounted on the ground in front of the cooler. In previous years I have placed the panel flat on the roof just above the solar cooler. That worked fine for most of the day. The tracker extends the time in the afternoon when the summer temperatures are keeping things hot.

The video runs for 1 minute and 8 seconds and shows how we use solar cooling for our home. We hope that you enjoy the video. Please watch our other solar videos available elsewhere on this site.

If you are using a dial up connection, it will take a while to load and watch the video. With a high speed connection the video starts almost immediately.

You can also visit the Living On Solar Blog to talk about solar cooling.

Click here to play the solar cooling video

Solar living is possible and you can build a solar evaporative cooler just like we did!

If the plans have a value to you please consider making a donation!

Click here to view the PDF file

 

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