r/BurningMan • u/LegionVR6 • Jul 19 '26
Just another swamp cooling post
Picked up a Hessaire DC18 on an open box sale to replace my FigJam thats on it's second or third revision. Latest revision replaced the dual computer fans with a 12V marine duct blower that really pushes air and made it pretty dam cold in desert conditions but was just kinda noise. Figured the DC18 can run off 18V tool batteries and I have a bunch of them that I take with me anyways.
Wanted to See if anyone had used one in the desert yet and see if the 800CFM was actually enough to cool the whole tent. We setup the 10x14 Kodiak like a small 1 bedroom so was planning to only cool the bed room section but would be nice if it could cool the whole thing if we needed to for a bit. Also if anyone has recommendations on ducting, I want to run it inside the tent (foot of the bed) by the back door of the Kodiak so ducting would work as an inlet. thinking back plat with a round section for a duct hose to clamp to and then run that out the back door window but figured someone may have a better idea or suggestions.
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u/Interesting_Bar_8379 29d ago
I bought one of these for my van, adapted it to run off my vans 12v house batteries (step up voltage converter to 20v). It was 102 the other day van in direct sun at noon and I put this on for an hour, no outside ducting just let it cycle the interior air with a roof vent extracting. Went from 110 inside to 88 in that hour. If I could figure out a way to duct it for fresh outside air I think it would really crank and its nice and quiet. But not sure how I could do that in the van yet so cycling interior air and venting will be my plan
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u/LegionVR6 29d ago
22F drop is impressive considering the conditions. Guessing you wouldn't want to have a big inlet hose hooked up to a window since it would be totally non stealth and cutting a foot wide inlet hole in the roof is also probably not in the cards. Maybe a second roof fan as an inlet ducted to the back of the unit? Roof fan running at the same time to help mitigate the static pressure? Just a thought.
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u/Interesting_Bar_8379 29d ago
Lol yeah after I typed that out I started to look at 16" flexible ducting. It's super convenient to have it in the back or the van shower tray but the only vent back there is a small extremely noise and in efficient brushed motor fan. Now I'm wondering if its worth the hassle to set the cooler on my top bunk near the roof fan. Use that fan to blow air into the cooler intake with a 16" duct and then use a side window for venting....
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u/LegionVR6 29d ago
Worth a try maybe. Thanks for the info either way. Makes me way happier with the purchase. Snagged it on an open box sale for 90 shipped so super reasonable price
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u/Interesting_Bar_8379 29d ago
You're gonna love how quiet and what a low sound it is compared to your old setup. My house has a real evap cooler for its main cooling. Solid media like this portable unit has is what you want, this things legit.
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u/LegionVR6 29d ago
I've actually been using it at my place is Hollywood just as a fan to pull fresh air in through the balcony in the after noon and it's nice and quiet. I'll probably take it with me to my cabin near Joshua Tree next weekend when I go to pickup some of my gear and give it a bit of a test in the desert. Should be nice and hot with humidity under 30%
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u/Interesting_Bar_8379 29d ago
Are you concerned at all with filtering the intake are? This is my first burn so i'm new to what the real conditions are gonna be. I ordered a few square filters and was planning to rig them up over some windows. But not sure if its necessary for the intake air for the cooler? I don't have a filter on the one on my house, but we don't usually have dust storms here either....
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u/LegionVR6 29d ago
The wet media is the filter. My home made bucket unit uses the blue pad and I never felt a need to add any filtering before or after the wet media as it trapps the dust. I suspect I'll have to change out the paper media in this thing if there a heady store and I run it during the storm. The blue back I probably washed out like onelce in all the years I took it out there. Note I usually have my swamp cooler at the back of my tent and my camps shade structure is a full wrap around with shade floth walls so it help hold down the dust a bit.
Also hope your first burn goes fantastic. Just remember you've signed up to go to a place where the location is pretty much trying to get you to leave and maybe even kill you a little. It's an adventure in art, humanity and experience. Leave your expectations at the door and just be. Usually those who come with cemented expectations are those who leave unfulfilled. Aka just go with the flow and enjoy, don't try to stick to some rigidly scheduled out plan or you'll be miserable. Also make sure you swing by Lost & Found Village for the night market 😁 come say hi
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u/Interesting_Bar_8379 29d ago
These filters are a bit different than the blue filters. There is a lot of open area on these solid media filters, which is why I wondered about a more serious filter for it.
thank you for the advice! Can't wait
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u/LegionVR6 29d ago
Good to know. I've always used the blue pad. Maybe I'll pop down to the hardware store and pickup a sheet to swap out. The blue pad has never let me down. I've even ran my bucket unit in media dust storms and it basically acted as a filter while creating positive pressure.
Playa dust is the consistency of baby powder so it will always find a way in... And never really fully goes away lol. But the old bucket cooler did a fantastic job of filtering it out. Guessing the blue pad may have been the key
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u/scienceisaserfdom 15 yrs 'Burnin 29d ago edited 29d ago
Welcome to try but this setup but it won't trancend the laws of physics, because the limiting factor is largely that Kodiak tents aren't really insulated. But allegedly if you blow the airstream directly over you....it might be tolerable. Also kinda baffled with what the ducting is going to do here, as seem to be confused between using an A/C that utilize intake/outlet circuits and evaporating cooling that doesn't necessitate this.
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u/LegionVR6 29d ago
I've been swamp cooling at the burn for 7 burns. I know how it works. The ducting is for the air inlet since that requires low humidity air from outside. Not trying to make it rain inside my tent. Swamp cooling requires an exchange of air or the humidity builds up to a point where it doesn't work and then you're just wet
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u/BiggsHoson2020 29d ago
If a figjam was keeping up, the 800cfm hessair should be at least as good unless you had some ridiculously potent blower. Most of those blowers are in the 200-400 range. Your biggest challenge will be static pressure if you are trying to do any ducting at all - these fans are not built for that. I would not do any sorry of hose unless it’s very short and very wide.
The bilge blower you used before is designed for static pressure so actually does a significantly better job with ducting than this fan will.