TIL: my neighbor's advice about swamp cooler pads was totally backwards

My neighbor Rick has been living here in ABQ for like 40 years so I figured he knew what he was talking about. He told me to use the cheap blue fiber pads instead of the expensive aspen ones because "they last longer and work better." So I bought a whole stack of blue pads from Home Depot back in March and swapped out my old aspen pads. Well fast forward to this heat wave in July and my swamp cooler just could not keep the house below 80 degrees. I called out a local HVAC guy and he took one look at those blue pads and said those are for cooler climates, not the high desert. The blue pads trap dust and don't breathe right in our dry air. Spent $60 on the right aspen pads and now my house actually gets cool when it runs. Has anyone else gotten bad advice from a well meaning neighbor about their cooler setup?

3 comments

3 Comments

josephl6726d ago

Respectfully disagree man... blue pads work fine if you replace them on time.

daniel85726d ago

@josephl67 you're not wrong about that... blue pads do the job if you stay on top of them. I used to run through them pretty quick until I switched to the gray ones for my orbital sander. The dust collection was way better and they lasted a good bit longer between changes. What really made the difference for me was pairing them with a lower grit progression too. Once I started using a 120 instead of jumping straight to 150, I got way less chatter marks.

derekward26d ago

Is it really that deep though? Different pads, same results.