How bad of an idea is a swamp cooler?

[Buzz]

Those little units, in areas of low humidity, will barely cool the person they're pointed at. Period. They certainly won't cool a room. Maybe a small closet, but only if there isn't a person in it to heat it up. If you live in area where the humidity is low enough to use swamp cooling, you can roll your own bu hanging up a wet towel in a doorway, and using a reasonably powerful fan. The $40 you save by not buying Arctic Air will buy you a plenty good pedestal fan at Costco. For even better cooling, suspend both ends of the wet towel, and put some blue ice packs in the bottom of the "U", it'll both help cool colder, as well as keep the towel from flapping around.

In areas with higher humidity, don't soak the towel, damp is OK, and use more blue ice packs, while spreading them out to make as much surface area as possible for the fan to blow on/across.

Please send your donations to me via Amazon gift cards. :-)
==