So, we had this "swamp cooler" that had been used to augment cooling in the machine room for a time. It has been sitting unused since before I started working here a few years ago. It takes up some space, but I could never remove it because it was attached to a hose in the wall, to drain the water. Well, this morning my colleague complained that the water was starting to smell, so I took it upon myself as the Senior Systems Administrator to solve the problem, once and for all! We found that the tub actually ran to the sink in the kitchen next to the machine room. I pondered many ways to remove the tube without spilling water in our machine room. Tourniquet? Well, the zip-ties couldn't compress the hose enough. In the end, I unfastened the hose from under the sink and plugged it with a pen. From there, it was a straightforward task to pull the tube back through the wall and remove the swamp cooler, freeing us up several cubic feet of valuable machine room!

I built this swamp cooler out of two plastic tubs, some actual swamp cooler 'cardboard' I found online, a powerful 12v (low wattage) fan, a low wattage water pump and powered it all from 12v batteries. The entire thing ran for about 12hrs on a single battery charge. At the absolute hottest part of the day, I reached a whopping 82 degrees inside the hexayurt. The metal tube is bringing hot/dry air inside and when it passes over the wet cardboard, it creates humidity that is then blown around the hexayurt by the powerful 12v fan. This was my first time to ever build a swamp cooler, so it was a learning experience since I was not able to test it until I was actually on the playa. The humidity in Austin was too high to test it at home. I plan to build a bigger swamp cooler for BM2011 that will allow for better airflow and hold more water.