Swamp cooler history

     Civilizations throughout the ages have found ingenious ways to combat the heat in their region. An earlier form of air cooling, the windcatcher, was invented in Persia (Iran) thousands of years ago in the form of wind shafts on the roof, which caught the wind, passed it over subterranean water in a qanat and discharged the cooled air into the building.

     A windcatcher is a traditional Persian architectural element to create natural ventilation in buildings. Windcatchers come in various designs: uni-directional, bi-directional, and multi-directional. Windcatchers remain present in many countries and can be found in traditional Persian-influenced architecture throughout the Middle East, including in the small Arab states of the Persian Gulf (mostly Bahrain and Dubai), Pakistan and Afghanistan.

     

 Schematic diagram of an ancient Iranian windcatcher and qanat, used for evaporative cooling of buildings

  

                                    A traditional swamp cooler in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, India

The swamp cooler was the subject of numerous US patents in the 20th century; many of these, starting in 1906, suggested or assumed the use of excelsior (wood wool) pads as the elements to bring a large volume of water in contact with moving air to allow evaporation to occur. A typical design, as shown in a 1945 patent, includes a water reservoir (usually with level controlled by a float valve), a pump to circulate water over the excelsior pads and a squirrel-cage fan to draw air through the pads and into the house. This design and this material remain dominant in swamp coolers in the American Southwest, where they are also used to increase humidity. In the United States, the use of the term swamp cooler may be due to the odor of algae produced by early units.