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Solar Air Conditioning - Build A Solar Evaporative Cooler

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Solar Air Conditioning - An Unexpected Use of Solar Energy

Solar Air Conditioning is possible. We found a way to cool our home using an existing evaporative cooler and a tracking solar panel. We want to show others how we did it. It is our goal to continually improve this site with new ideas about solar cooling. We hope this lens will inspire new ideas for cooling our homes efficiently..

You can also visit our website Living On Solar

Contents at a Glance

How You Can Cool Your Home With The Sun
We Used An Existing Evaporative Cooler
Solar Air Conditioning - Build Your Own...
Other Uses For Solar Energy - Passive So...
Other Uses For Solar Energy - Solar Elec...
Solar Books

When you generate electricity using solar panels, you learn how to conserve all the energy you can. Providing about 800 watts per hour, our solar electric system can not power a compressor type air conditioner. We were limited to using fans to keep cool in the summer. When we lived in another area in California, we used an evaporative cooler to keep our home comfortable in the summer. It worked well and used 1/3 to 1/4 the energy of a forced air AC system. Using an evaporative type cooler is a logical choice for us since we live in a dry climate.

We Used An Existing Evaporative Cooler

We converted an existing evaporative cooler that we purchased locally to operate using power provided by a 12 volt DC solar electric panel. We added an automobile radiator fan and a 12 volt bilge pump to the cooler and power it directly with the panel. We mounted the panel on a home made tracker which extends the time that the cooler can operate.

Solar Air Conditioning - Build Your Own Solar Cooler

Build A Solar Air Conditioner

We built a solar evaporative cooler to keep our home cool in the summer. You can use our plans and do the same. The plans are FREE for download, but we encourage donations from those that use them.

Watch our solar cooling video

Other Uses For Solar Energy - Passive Solar

We live in a passive solar home.

You can watch our passive solar video to see how it works.

Other Uses For Solar Energy - Solar Electricity

We generate our electricity with solar panels.

You can watch our solar electricity video to see how it works.

Solar Books

Here are some books we recommend.

Earth4Energy At Last! A complete plan to eliminate your power bill and pocket the savings for yourself!
Click Here for more information!

Home Made Energy Renewable energy for the rest of us. How Would You Like To UNPLUG Your House From Your Electrical Company, Knowing That You Are "100% Powered By Nature" With Renewable Energy?
Click Here for more information!

The Solar Power Design Manual will guide you smoothly through the complex process of designing, specifying and installing stand-alone solar power systems for all applications, anywhere in the world.
Click Here for more information!

Great Solar Products on Amazon

Solar Videos

Videos showing how we live on solar.

Solar Cooling On The Living On Solar Blog

Visit Our Blog And Talk About Solar Cooling

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Ezine Articles By Jim Eddy (AKA Livingonsolar)

Solar Air Conditioning News

Medical Center to Save Money With Chromasun Solar Enhanced Gas Air ...: DANVILLE, CA, Feb 08, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Chromasun, the leading commercial rooftop solar solutions company, today unveiled construction of a solar and natural gas powered air-conditioning project at Crow Canyon Medical Center in Danville.
Thermal storage gets more solar on the grid: But in summer, people tend to need air conditioning during the dinner hour and beyond, when kitchen appliances are whirring, lights are on, and TVs are blaring. To the rescue comes concentrating solar power (CSP), a technology being tested and deployed ...
Solar so good for University of Reading: By Paul Cassell Two buildings at The University of Reading's Whiteknights campus have been fitted with more than 200 solar panels on their roofs to generate green electricity. Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels have been installed at The Carrington ...

Links To Solar Sites We Like

Solar Electricity: We live in an all solar home. We are glad to share what we have learned over the last 20 years about solar electricity.
Passive Solar Home: We live in an all solar home. We would like to show you what it is like living in a passive solar home.
Solar Tracking: We live in an all solar home. We made a small solar tracker for a solar panel that controls our solar evaporative cooler.
Solar Heating - Use Solar Energy To Heat Water: We heat our water with solar panels that are mounted on our roof.

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N2squared-Enterprises Oct 31, 2011 @ 8:35 pm | delete

Very informative lens on solar panels for your home. Great job!

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GiftsFromNature Oct 28, 2011 @ 10:09 pm | delete

I think maybe people who live in humid areas don't know much about evaporative coolers. Where I live it's dry and these kinds of coolers are a much better choice than regular air conditioners, which just dry out the air even more. I think it's great that you were able to make this work for you. And I love the idea of "cooling your home with the sun" - it sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it really isn't.