When my family moved to the desert region of the Southwest, I was not thrilled. I was just finishing up my Junior year in High School and the last thing I wanted was to be the “new kid” for my final year. I tried to arrange to stay with friends for that last school year but my parents wouldn’t hear of it. That was five years ago, and now, I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I just finished my degree from a local trade school, found a great job, and I am in the process of buying my first house. My parents recommended that I hire an independent inspector to go over the house and make sure everything was good before I signed any papers. I hired a guy that came highly recommended by a friend of mine but when he handed me his list of things that he felt needed to be fixed, I had to laugh. In big letters at the top of the list was, “swamp cooler needs to be replaced”. I think he could see that I was perplexed because I had never heard that term and I knew we didn’t have a “swamp” in our area. We barely got any rain throughout the year let alone had standing water. He laughed and explained that it was a term used to describe the type of air conditioning unit that I had at the house. This unit works differently from a typical one that uses compressed air and refrigerant to cool a space. This device cools the air through the evaporation of water. In drier climates this type of system can significantly cool the air by using this process and add moisture back to the air in your home too. This improves both the feel and the quality of the air you breathe.