My Current Playa Fantasy - Erect Nipples

[aranryan]

Imagine yourself strolling down one of the BRC avenues, alcohol seeping from your pores, beading on your forehead, and causing you to shout obscenities at the Sun. Damn it! If only dancing till dawn excluded the dawn part, you'd still be groovin with that hottie down at the Deep End. Suddenly, a friendly burner notices your plight and invites you into their abode for a drink and respite from the harsh and unrelenting heat of the midday sun. You walk in and BAM, nipples become hard and a slight shudder travels the length of your body from the drastic change in tempurature. You've found a chilled out oasis, a rescue ship in the ocean of heat waves! "OMG! Have I finally sucommbed to heat stroke?" you ask as they hand you a frosty beverage. "No, my friend, you've entered into the coolest dome on the playa." Yes, erect nipples freakin RULE!

So.... in my quest for a cooler dome structure I've given much thought into installing some sort of evaporative cooling system that doesn't require electric power or, if need be, solar power. I'm certain others have taken the engineering plunge around here and I'm wondering what has worked for you.

The good thing is that I don't have to cool a large area. My dome is only 15 ft in diameter (5/8 version) so its like less than 450sq feet of air space to cool. I have a full aluminet outer covering and (pending) an inner Temptrol lining so I have a nice insulating layer and great radiant heat barrier. Potentially, I could get the inside around 70 degrees during the hottest part of the day and keep it pretty stable.

In my mind I'm thinking of ways to harness the winds to run a pump and fan in a swamp cooler. The alternative is to run them off solar panels but those are expensive. I haven't figured out how many watts I'd need to run a 12v fan/pump continuously either. I've seen examples of ice chests being modified to run as A/C units but it seems like I'd be running to get Ice all the time. This is why I think the swamp cooler idea would be perfect for Burning Man structures. There is like 5% humidity out there at any given time (If any). Perfect for evap coolers.

If anyone has ideas or input or a DIY plan for playa powered dome coolers, please enlighten me. I'll be working this out myself as well. If I get something that I think works I'll definitely share it, possibly build a couple if there's a demand. And who knows, maybe I'll be able to invite you in for a frosty beverage?

Aren't playa projects fun?

[dragonfly Jafe]

Our camp (Blunderland) did something like this in 2005 and 2006. Used an army tent with liner covered with white camo netting. Fully carpeted floor with a few hundred pillows. Large swamp cooler and a few fans inside moving air around. Only dim colored lights inside. Never took a temp reading, but it was cool enough that when napping during the day I wanted to cover myself up with a light blanket or a few pillows. Be sure to turn off the swamp cooler at night though (we forgot once and had dew everywhere the next morning!)

[aranryan]

Bump...

I think perhaps the title of my post coupled with the long read has led to little response. Next time I'll keep it more simplistic.

[esper]

I know this thread is a little old, but oh well.

Starting with the idea of not letting heat in in the first place is gonna be key and it seems like you have that covered already.

I usually follow the "hope for the best, plan for the worst" train of thought. Worst case scenario for you would be high humidity, high heat, low winds, and enough sun to be uncomfortable, but not enough to power a panel very well.

What I am considering (I'm a first timer and need to do some testing before leaving) is a set of zeer pots. You could set up a golf cart/deep cycle battery with some type of charging source so it trickle charges off and on.

Plumb the zeer pot so that you can pump cool water from inside the inner pot, through some type of radiator and have a small fan blow the cool air off of the radiator. The actual cooling would be accomplished from the pots and the electricity is just to pump the cooled water and a fan.

I'm not sure if it would smell or do anything funky but I wonder if gray water could even be used as the evaporating liquid. Would be fairly cheap to make too I believe.

Those are my thoughts at the moment.