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Broken Swamp Cooler Water Distributor

Getting Set Up

When buying the replacement kit, it usually is based on the number of arms. I needed a 6 arm kit.

Replacement Water Distributor Kit

The replacement kit came with

• Distribution block
• MEK gluing compound to attach the arms to the block
• Screw in adapter for the supply hose
• Screw for attaching the new kit to the swamp cooler

Water Distribution Kit Parts

If you’re lucky like me you’ll need a couple of tools.

• Hacksaw or something to cut the plastic arms
• Tape measure
• Flat head and possibly a Philips screwdriver
• Pliers

Hacksaw and Measuring Tape

Pliers and Screwdriver

Disconnecting The Water Supply Hose

Disconnect the clamp from the supply hose. If I though ahead I would have bought a new hose and just reused the clamps.

It might be necessary to use a flat head screwdriver to pry the hose off of the old distribution block.

Removing Water Supply Hose

Figuring Out Arm Cut Length

Looking at the distribution block, it looks like the same size. That means the arm length will most likely be the same. Also, make sure all the arms are close to being the same length.

Cut Length = Arm Length from the Distribution Knuckle + Distribution Joint Depth

Measuring The Arm Length From The Distribution Knuckle

Use the old water distributor to measure the arm.

Measuring Old Distribution Arm

Measure from the knuckle to the end of the arm.

Measure Old Arm From Distribution Knuckle

Measure Old Arm To End

Measuring The Distribution Joint Depth

To measure the distribution joint depth, push the arm into the distribution block joint and mark the spot with your finger.

Push New Arm In Distribution Block

Pull the arm from the joint and measure from your finger to the end of the arm.

Measure From Finger To End

Cutting The Arm To Length

Take the two measurements above and add them together for the cut length. For me, my cut length is 10 ½ inches, 10 inches for the arm length and ½ inch for the distribution block joint.

Because the new arm didn’t have a sharp 90 degree angle where the water came out, I measured for the cut further down the bend.

A screwdriver helped me figure out where to mark. (All I did was place my fingers in the spot. I didn’t think I would see a Sharpie mark on the black plastic.)

Measuring To Cut The New Arm

Cut the arm with a hacksaw.

Cutting New Distribution Arm

Test the first arm that is cut by putting it in the distribution block and measuring it to the furthest part.

Test Fitting The First Distribution Arm

For the other cuts on the arms, use the first arm on top of the other arms to measure and cut them.

Using The First Arm As A Template

Test Fitting

Before gluing the arms to the distribution block, dry fit everything and place it in the swamp cooler to make sure they are the correct length.

To check for correct length, place one of the cooling pad holders in place. The arms should feed water into the cooling pad holder.

Test Fitting The New Water Distribution Before Gluing

Glue Up And Installation

Glue it all together using the MEK glue that comes with the kit. WORK FAST!! (Sorry no pic on this one. Had to work REALLY fast and couldn’t take pictures.)

There is not much time for positioning, so make sure the arms are facing the right way when you put them in the distribution block.

Screw in the adapter for the supply hose. Make sure to check if it is going in straight. Mine started to go in crooked the first time around. This doesn’t need glue.

Screw In Adapter For Water Supply Hose

Time to reattach the hose to the adapter using the old clamp.

Re-attaching The Water Supply Hose

Use the screw that came with the kit to attach the new water distribution system to the swamp cooler.

Attach New Water Distribution System To Swamp Cooler

Installed In Swamp Cooler

Other Swamp Cooler Posts

• Fixing A Swamp Cooler Water Distribution System
• Replacing A Swamp Cooler Float Valve
• Replacing Swamp Cooler Pads

Anatomy of a Step

Anatomy of a Step

Riser – The vertical elements in a set of stairs.
Tread – The horizontal part of a stair, also known as a the step.
Nosing – The horizontally projecting edge of a stair tread.

Riser Height

The finished riser height is measured from the top of the starting tread to the top of the next tread up the stairs.

Measuring Riser Height

• The finished riser height can be no more than 7 3/4 inches.
• The International Residential Code (IRC) does not mandate a minimum finished riser height.
• Keep in mind that there might be a height difference if different floor coverings are used. This usually occurs at the top and bottom landings.

Tread Depth

Measuring Tread Depth

• Finished tread depth should be at least 10 inches.
• If treads have no nosing the tread depth should be at least 11 inches
• It is measured horizontally from the leading edge of the adjacent treads.
• There shouldn’t be more than a 3/8 inch variance between any two treads in the flight of stairs. This doesn’t apply to consistently shaped winding treads in the same flight of stairs.

Tread Nosing

Measuring Tread Nosing

• There must be a finished tread nosing of at least 3/4 inch and not more than 1 1/4 inches for stairs with a solid wood riser.
• Tread nosing is not necessary if the tread is at least 11 inches deep.
• There shouldn’t be more than a 3/8 inch depth difference between any two treads for all the treads between two stories. This includes floors and landings.
• For the finish detail on the tread nosing, the curvature radius should not exceed 9/16 inch and 1/2 inch for a bevel edge.

Notes

In researching this article I’ve come across some variations that people have posted about local building codes. I believe it was Alabama that allowed a finished riser height of 8 inches. Here are some links that might help.

• Local Building Code Reference – There are links, if available, by state for local building codes.
• Codes for Homeowners: Electrical Codes, Mechanical Codes, Plumbing Codes, Building Codes – A really well put together basic code reference with a lot of good pictures and easy to understand language. If you don’t buy it, at least check it out at the library.
• Residential Building Codes Illustrated – An easy-to-use illustrated guide to the building code requirements for construction of residential structures.
• Stairway Manufacturer’s Association – This has some useful charts on riser heights, tread depth and stair gradients.

These are some observations from my experiences with using each type of container garden irrigation. Please take a look at this post if you are interested in how I ran irrigation stubs to my in-ground planter pot garden along my back wall.

Soaker Hose

This is what I started out using for my in-ground containers because I’m using ¼ inch soaker hose on the raised bed gardens I have. For the raised beds I wanted as much coverage as possible when watering so I left the hose above ground.

As seen in the picture, if the soaker hose isn’t covered by some type of mulch there is a lot of over-spray. When I was using this style of irrigation for the older in-ground pots I covered the soaker hose with shredded leaves for mulch.

Soaker Hose Irrigation Without Mulch

Drip Line Emitter Tubing

Drip line emitters have a drip put in every 12 inches for ¼ inch tubing and every 18 inches for ½ inch tubing. They are supposed to regulate the flow of water to usually 1 gallon per hour (gph).

Truthfully, I had this line emitter tubing from I’m not sure where. What it was supposed to do and what it did were two different things. Here are the reasons I really didn’t think this type of irrigation would be good for containers.

• There ends up being a lot of tubing coiled in the pot to get a couple of emitters in it.
• My hose must have been cheap. It had slices in it instead of a punched hole. This probably made a big difference when it came to water flow.
• The tubing I had definitely needed an in-line water pressure reducer. The pressure coming out of the emitters would have torn up seedlings.

Drip Line Emitter Tubing

Adjustable Drip Emitters

Adjustable drip emitters allow you to change the water flow usually from 1 gallon per hour (gph) to 6 gph. This is the solution I liked the most so far, but it is a little expensive compared to the other solutions. Each emitter is about 50 – 75 cents each and it requires a T connection to branch off.

• If a container isn’t being used the emitters could be turned off, and the water usage can be close to none. I’m sure there will be a little leaking if any.
• The coverage is good. The emitters being used now cover about a 4 inch diameter area when they are opened up. The entire container surface area is almost covered using 4-5 emitters.
• The flow from the emitters is slow enough not to damage seedlings.

Adjustable Drip Emitters

Fixed Drip Emitters

I’ve used these for herbs like Basil and Rosemary that were started 4-5 weeks under the grow lamp setup I built.

• Fixed drip emitters usually com in 1 gph and 2 gph flow rates.
• Multiple emitters might need to be used based on how long the watering cycle is and size of the plant.

I had some success with these last season. One thing to note is the plants only received half a day’s sun.

Fixed Drip Emitter

This time around I used two different plastic nursery pots sizes, 4 gallons like before and one closer to 5-6 gallons. Both types were purchased and Home Depot from the gardening area. The 4 gallon one was around $5 and the 5-6 gallon one was closer to $6.50. They were tucked away near the tomato cages and not near the normal pot and plant container area.

Layout

After I removed the sandstone rock that was being used for mulch, I placed the pots along the back wall to try to judge a good spacing.

Rough In Ground Pot Layout

Bringing Irrigation to the Containers

To make the installation easier I used funny pipe. I really didn’t feel like gluing PVC pipe and having to deal with adapting the connections to go to the plastic nursery pots.

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100 Feet of 3/8 Inch Funny Pipe

I was able to use a PVC to irrigation funny pipe connector to tap into what used to be a sprinkler. The grass in that area is gone, but luckily I was too lazy to dig up the existing irrigation.

Irrigation Hook-up

In Las Vegas I’m sure the freeze line is pretty shallow. The irrigation funny pipe was run in a 6 inch deep trench in front of the planters since there was already a funny pipe irrigation line behind the planters that was on a different water schedule, one that runs a slow drip system for a long period of time.

Funny Pipe Irrigation

A barbed coupler was used to pierce the funny pipe for the ¼ inch line that will go to each of the containers.

1/4 inch Barbed Coupler

I made sure to over estimate the length so I wouldn’t run out of ¼ inch line.

1/4 inch Irrigation Lines To Pots

Putting Pots In the Ground

When digging the holes, I tried to make sure when it was filled in that the planter pot would stick about 3-4 inches from the ground. Also, a small trench in front of the pot allowed for the irrigation to easily reach the container.

Pots In The Ground

After this project I ended up taking about ½ a truck bed of dirt to the dump. Unfortunately I had no use for it in other places.

Finishing the Containers

After the pots were all in the ground a 4 foot wide weed barrier was put down. When installing the weed barrier, it was stretched the length of the area and holes were cut for the gardening containers.

An edging, that was purchased at the end of last season for 50% off, was installed to keep the rock mulch from creeping on to the sidewalk.

The usual raised bed / container gardening soil mix was used to fill the pots.

Filling Containers With Soil

The irrigation stubs were capped off so the rest of the garden could be watered while I was figuring out what to plant in these.

Irrigation Stub In Container

Lessons For Next Time

• I should have used string as a guide to keep a consistent center line from the back wall.
• Measure and mark the center line of where the pots will be finally placed on the string described above. Let’s just say my pots don’t have an exact placement .
• Test the irrigation by capping off all the ¼ inch tube with a plug and turning on the water. This is to test the connection point on the funny pipe to make sure you don’t bury a leak. Conserve that water!
• Mix in any time release fertilizer you want to use when filling the containers.

• Put in more in-ground planters along the back wall. This area gets a lot of direct sun.
• In all the raised beds except for bed #3, I’m doing a mix of either vegetables and flowers or herbs and flowers.

Current Garden Layout

Current Garden Layout

In-ground Planters

1. Moon and Star Watermelon
2. Okra
3. empty
4. empty
5. Solar Fire Tomato
6. empty
7. Hot Portugal Chili
8. Sugar Snap Peas
9. empty
10. Zucchini
11. Bell Pepper
12. Masai Bush Beans
13. Early Girl Tomato
14. Super 100 Tomato [seed]
15. Cherry Tomato
16. Masai Bush Beans
17. Salad Bush Cucumber

Raised Beds

Some of the raised beds don’t get full sun because they are near and partially under some large trees. That works out to a degree when summer hits here in Las Vegas. In the Spring and Fall though it’s hard to grow vegetables in certain beds.

This is what I’ve planted so far in the raised beds.

Raised Bed #1
This raised bed gets the least amount of light because of the trees and being close to the house, but the Sage is still alive from last year’s planting.

Raised Bed #2
There is more afternoon sun, about 6 hours, that comes through the trees. This happens more in certain areas of the raised bed than others.

Raised Bed #3
This is the raised bed that gets the most light. Last year, I had two tomato plants that took over the entire bed. Pretty much I expect the same thing to happen this year so I planted other stuff that will be harvested before this happens or will be a vine.

Raised Bed #4
Similar to Raised Bed #2, this one gets a mix of sun and shade. I still need to go through and possibly plant some vegetables or herbs that can be harvested before the Cherry Tomatoes get too big.

Additional Primed Cabinets

Something that works for me when painting the detail in the doors is to start in the corners first.

Starting One Side of the Corner

Still Painting Corner

I mentioned in the Day 1 posting that I’m doing 3 coats of primer. The pictures below illustrate why.

Stain Coming Through 1st Primer Coat

Stain Almost Covered With 2nd Primer Coat

After the 2nd coat of primer dries, the 3rd coat will completely cover the stain and fill the wood pores.

One thing that helps is to have a helper like mine. She does a good job of keeping birds away .

Painting Helper

Up through this post,

• the only power tool I’ve used is a cordless drill to remove the cabinet doors
• all sanding has been done by hand
• all painting has been done by either brush or roller

It has been about 13 1/2 hours and so far I’ve done the following.

• 3 coats of primer on 1/3 of the cabinets
• 1 coat of primer on another 1/3 of the cabinets
• 3 coats of primer on 2 doors and 1 drawer front
• 2 coats of primer on 6 drawer fronts

Next weekend I’m changing things up. I’m shifting over to using more power tools

• Use a random orbiting sander for prep
• Use an air compressor to clean drawer and door fronts
• Setup a temporary spray booth area
• Use a latex sprayer to apply primer and paint

Just in case it started to rain while I was working, I slapped together a work table under the porch from a wheelbarrow, an old door and some scrap wood to level it.

Wheelbarrow Work Table

I purchased a 2″ and 4″ roller to see if that would help apply the paint faster than using the 6″ roller.

New Paint Rollers

The thing that is taking the longest is doing the doors and drawer fronts so I started on those first.

When sanding and painting the drawer fronts I made sure not to sand off or paint over the number I put on the back of the drawer fronts. I really don’t want to have to figure out which front goes where by the screw holes.

Numbered Drawer Fronts

Primed Numbered Drawer Front

When inspecting the previous day’s work I noticed there was some crazy stain / substance coming through the Kilz 2 primer.

Crazy Stain On Cabinet

There was no way any amount of primer was going to cover that so I scraped and sanded the cabinet in that spot. After that the stain didn’t come back when the primer was reapplied.

Scraped And Sanded Stain

The rolling action on the Whizz 2″ roller was pretty bad. I ended up using it as just a sponge to paint the edges of the cabinet.

Using Non-Working 2″ Roller As Sponge

What worked great was the 4″ roller. I was able to get into some smaller areas that I was using a brush before. In fact I eventually ditched the 2″ roller and used the combination of 4″ roller and small brush.

4″ Roller Works Great

The thing that really paid off was having the larger work area under the patio.

Larger Work Area Is Key

I was able to get a total of 3 coats on the cabinets I started earlier and made more progress on the cabinet doors and drawers in that area of the kitchen.

Our kitchen cabinets are really old, 30 years, have some kind of oak stain on them and don’t even have solid door. Never seen raised doors that were two pieces of door skin with some edging holding them together. Anyway I decided to tackle painting the kitchen cabinets.

Being President’s Day weekend I was lucky enough to get Monday off. This gives me one more day to mess something up and fix it by the time I have to start work again on Tuesday.

Original Kitchen

I had tried a couple of methods in the past to paint the cabinets without success.

• Just paint the cabinet with a brush and some kitchen and bath enamel paint
• Use enamel spray paint with a spray primer to paint a drawer front

Just painting with a brush left some really pronounced brush strokes and there was something in the wood that bled through no matter how many coats was put on.

Failed Painting Hanging Cabinet Test

Closeup Of Failed Painting Test

When I did the spray paint method, I really wanted a smooth finish. I tried to fill in the pores of the wood, but just doing that one drawer front took hours. The results were less than optimal. There are little pocks on the front where I didn’t get all the wood pores filled. If I were to do this again I would just cut a new front from MDF.

Failed Spray Painting Front Drawer

The steps I am going to take for painting all the cabinets.

1. Mask off around the cabinet. I’m not that good of a painter so if I don’t want to accidentally paint it I have to use painters masking tape.
2. Remove the door / drawer front
3. Sand the existing finish. I used
   • sandpaper between 100 – 150 grit.
   • a smaller sanding block made from a scrap piece of wood
   • a large sanding block normally used for sanding drywall
4. Apply at least 2 coats of primer. Primer is cheaper than regular paint. I used Kilz2 latex because the VOCs are way less than the oil based one.
5. Apply 2 coats of enamel based kitchen and bath paint

I started with the failed upper cabinet that I painted earlier. It was already masked off and all I had to do was take the doors off, sand it and put the first coat of primer. Everything went smooth.

Doors From Failed Test Cabinet Off

After that I started on the lower cabinet below that one.

Masking Off Area

Removing Drawer Front

The drawer fronts were attached by screws and staples. I’m just going to use the screws when reattaching the fronts.

Drawer Fronts Removed
Watch Out For Staples

To keep track of the two different door screws and hinges, I put the screws in bowls according to size and kept all the hinges in one area.

Keeping Track Of Door Screws And Hardware

When I started to take the drawer fronts off more drawers I numbered the drawers and corresponding fronts, on the inside of the drawer fronts. I started with 0 because I’m a geek.

Numbering To Keep Track Of Fronts And Drawers

I start sanding and within not even a minute I slice my thumb on one of the staples sticking out of the drawers.

After bandaging my thumb, I pounded those staples down. Needless to say I didn’t make that mistake with the other ones.

Told Me To Watch Out For Staples

My Revenge On The Staples

Sanded Cabinet

Before putting on the primer, I wiped the cabinet clean with a damp cloth. Later I used a shop vac to clean the cabinet before wiping it down. Doing this:

• allowed me to use the cloth for more than one piece
• kept the dust down

To apply the primer I was using a brush for the detailed work and a smooth roller for larger areas.

Small Brush and 6 Inch Roller

I started with the brush to get the cracks and area the roller would have a hard time getting.

Using Small Paint Brush First

First Coat Of Primer On Cabinet

When doing the doors I would do the side facing inside the cabinet first. Again using the brush first on the edges and areas the roller can’t reach.

Using Small Brush On Doors First

A little while back my wife bought me something called Painters Pyramids. These allow you to paint the other side of a flat object without having to wait for the first side to dry. These were also the reason I did the side facing the cabinet first just in case there were little marks left by the pyramids.

Setting Up The Painters Pyramids

Painting Other Side Of Door With Painters Pyramids

So far I’ve worked on this project for 5 hours and maybe have finished about 20% of the project.

Day 1 Lower Cabinet Progress

Day 1 Upper Cabinet Progress

Day 1 Door And Drawer Front Progress

Leaking Bathroom Valve

In addition to the leaking bathroom valve, the ones in the laundry room were really old and one had a handle.

Broken Laundry Valve

Note:
Our house has copper for plumbing so I was able to reuse the existing compression fitting and nut from the old valves. I’ll include some links at the end for water line valve installation on different materials.

First thing is to turn off the water to the house. The water shut off valve for our house is in the sidewalk in front of the house. Use a wrench to turn the valve.

Turning Off Water

Drain the water from the lines by opening up a faucet until only a slight trickle comes out. Draining the lines usually takes between 5 to 10 minutes.

No matter how much you let the water drain there will always be some coming out of the pipes when you start removing the valves. Make sure you put some towels in the area to catch any water that might leak out.

Preparing Work Area

You’ll notice in the picture below that the hose is permanently attached to the water shut off valve for the bathroom faucet. Because of this I had to replace the water shut off valve and the hose going from the valve to the faucet.

Removing Sink Connection

One of the laundry room water shut off valves was really stuck, but a couple shots of WD40 and about 5 minutes later it came off with no problem.

Oiling Stubborn Valve

When removing the valve, use the biggest wrenches / pliers possible that still allow for full range of motion in the work space. As you can see below they don’t have to be pretty.

I love the 12 inch crescent wrench I have, similar to this Crescent 12-Inch Adjustable Wrench. It provides great torque and is one my go to tools.

Old Bathroom Valve Removal

I left the nut and brass compression ring, also referred to as a ferrule, on the copper pipe. The idea behind this is to reuse the old nut and compression ring on a new valve.

Bathroom Valve Removed

Compression Ring

There are different threads available for the replacement valve. The best thing is to remove the old valve, take it to the local hardware store and match up the threads. My water valves have coarse threading.

Coarse Thread

Just a side note. My replacement laundry room water valves cost about 50% more than the bathroom ones.

Replacement Laundry Valve

Replacement Bathroom Valve

Wrap some Teflon tape around the threads of the new water valve.

Wrapping Teflon Tape

Hand tighten the nut on the replacement water valve then finish tightening with a wrench.

Installing New Valve