As northern Utah sees more days above 100 degrees, residents are debating the pros and cons of cooling off with a relic of the West’s past.
Fifty or 60 years ago, swamp coolers were the region’s go-to. Rocky Mountain Power spokesperson Dave Eskelsen estimated they were in four out of five homes in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Now, once-ubiquitous evaporative systems are found in just a small fraction of homes.
They cool things down by running air through a thick, wet pad, and they’re only effective in dry climates where water can evaporate. Performance depends on heat and humidity. A machine can only cool the air so much, said Tim Kowalchik, research director at the Utah Office of Energy Development.
“They've been efficient for a while. Utah's been hot for a while,” he said. “They certainly work well most of the time.”
But once the mercury climbs into triple digits, they might not do enough.
“If it's really hot and they can only cool your house by 20 degrees, 30 degrees, does moving your house from 100 down to 80 — you know, how comfortable are you with that?” Kowalchik said.
Data from the federal government’s 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey says swamp coolers are the primary cooling for about 7% of homes across Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Less than 2% of homes have them as a backup.
It’s more common for homes to have no cooling at all than to use a swamp cooler.
Eskelsen credits the decline with low energy costs and more efficient air conditioning. But he’s still on team swamp cooler. He upgraded older units in his home to a high-efficiency evaporative model that “does a pretty good job,” keeping temperatures at 77 degrees during the recent heat wave.
For some extra chill, Casey Olson with the Utah Climate Center recommends hanging wet clothes and blowing a fan over them, like a DIY evaporative cooler.
“It's remarkable how much you can cool your house just from that,” he said.
While swamp coolers use much less electricity than air conditioners, they do use more water. Calculating the exact costs for each is complicated, Kowalchik said.
They also pose issues when the air is polluted. Some people add filters to their units, but Bo Call with the Utah Division of Air Quality recommends going elsewhere on smoky days if you have a swamp cooler.
“It might be time to go visit the relations,” he said. “Or pack up and go someplace else.”
Nonprofits across Utah help certain low-income residents heat and cool their homes through the Weatherization Assistance Program. So far in July, Utah Community Action in Salt Lake City has heard from 11 households who are having trouble keeping cool, said Chief Operating Officer Sahil Oberoi.
“Generally speaking, those are swamp coolers,” he said. “We don't get a lot of AC call-ins.”
Unlike central air, swamp coolers are localized to the area where they’re mounted, whether that’s a window or a ceiling. Cool air doesn’t spread through the home, which isn’t ideal, he said.
And Oberoi understands why those households aren’t switching to AC on their own. Utah Community Action spends an average of $6,000 to install central air and check for insulation in what tend to be smaller, older homes, he said.
“New builds are not putting in swamp coolers. They're putting in AC units. So it's the older units, which, again, are the units that are being inhabited by our low-income folks.”
Then there’s the rare humid day, when swamp coolers, despite their name, lose much of their capability. Oberoi said some of his staff rely on swamp coolers, and the monsoon weather in the forecast is making them nervous.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
