Swamp thing

So, I knew that moving to a new state would bring up odd differences. When I moved to Boston, there were a few differences. I was surprised that civilized people did not have air conditioning (I mean, wtf?). Dr Pepper was not avidly available at every restaurant. People didn’t open doors for you, which I found quite rude. A lot of people couldn’t pronounce “r’s.”

When I moved to New Mexico, I wasn’t anticipating that many cultural differences. I mean, it’s the Southwest, and Austin is much more like the SW than the South, so I figured I would fit right in. And I did. For a while.

Then, it came to be springtime. It’s pretty warm here (around 70 degrees) during the day. Mind you, I don’t really need air conditioning when it’s that temperature (we live in a quiet enough neighborhood that we can just open the windows and back door and create a draft). However, I was confused why we seemed to only have a thermostat for heat. I mean, we live in a desert. Surely, eventually, it gets hot here. I found out that it’s true. People do have air conditioning here. Sort of.

So, you might not know this, but Albuquerque is actually at 6,000 feet, higher than Denver. The air is thin and there is no humidity. Because there is no humidity, you shock things all the time. Can be slightly annoying, but after a while, you don’t even notice anymore. Because of the lack o’humidity, they have these things called “swamp coolers.”

I had never heard of swamp coolers before coming here. This is the way I understand them. Warm dry air is changed to cool, moist air. Heat in the air is used to evaporate the water. So, in turn, it sucks up air, cools it, and releases it back into your house, including some humidity, so you don’t shock everything. Pretty weird, in my opinion. It’s less expensive to install, less expensive to operate, really easy to maintain. However, it will add humidity (so if that’s not your bag, which can be unfortunate). Water high in mineral content will leave deposits on the pads that wrap over the coolers, so sometimes they can smell. Usually this can be solved by cleaning them during the wintertime. Supposedly, people who have asthma are not too keen on them either.

So, in other words, I have a “swamp cooler.” It was turned on today by the city. We don’t have control on when we can “activate it,” but we can control how cold it can get in our house.

If you are looking to ever move to Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, El Paso, Tucson and Fresno, beware. The Swamp Coolers are out there.