Secrets of the Kula Queen, rain barrels, summer parties and more

Life, food, events, and community in Albuquerque, NM

Secrets of the Kula Queen, rain barrels, summer parties and more

Posted by sophie on May 23, 2008 at 2:00pm

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A long time ago, before many of you even knew about the Duke City Fix, there was an earlier Fix. And that earlier Fix has three summers' worth of Albuquerque hot weather info and advice, including:

Secrets of the Kula Queen: Servicing your swamp cooler
Good Kula maintenance takes about an hour or so (less with two people, a little more if the Kula is old), plus some shopping time. If you do it yourself, you will save fifty bucks or more, and you will know that the cooler has been properly serviced.

Make way for ducklings
Our city has it's fair share of discount bakeries featuring cheap bread and the ducks won't particularly care if what you're feeding them is a day old.

Summer Reading under a Rock
Albuquerque has a rich history that it can easily be taken for granted. There are places that are lost or become secrets only the old timers know about.

How not to get (your backyard rager) busted
We've solicited advice from, um, not a cop. But from someone who has a good handle on the subject.

A Rain Barrel for the Size Conscious
We just bought a 100 gallon rain barrel. It looked pretty big in the showroom. It looked even bigger on our brand-new patio.

Burque Backyard Bivouac
Albuquerque is pretty perfect for this sort of urban camping - the weather is great, the bugs are few, the neighborhood is quiet, and many back yards are sufficiently xeric that we don't have to worry unduly about getting woken up at 6am by the sprinklers.

A survival guide for albuquerque kids headed to the santa fe opera
I like to thumb an Albuquerque nose at the preening Santa Fe royalty. How DID they let in those common-folk from Albuquerque? Aw yeah, our approach is to beat them at their own game.

To find more, search the archives here.

Tags: albuquerque, summer

Comment by Albuquerque Commentator on May 23, 2008 at 4:48pm: Thanks for the reference!

Comment by Brendan on May 23, 2008 at 5:33pm: Can anybody vouch for painting your cooler pan? I'm always hesitant to introduce a new material that might flake off over time into my air intake system. The spray on stuff they sell never seems to entirely dry and makes me wonder if I'm going to be breathing aquatic paint chemistry whenever the cooler is running.

When it was 95F outside last week, our new mastercool was keeping it a nice 72F inside- incredible (Must be that 12" pad). It was 1/3 the price of adding AC to our central heat system and a whole lot quieter.

Comment by hbl on May 24, 2008 at 7:23am: Ahhhhhhhh- thank you so much Sophie for the reminder. I recall fondly following the adventures of Eckelberg and Grumblecakes gardening in the South Valley... My how the fix has grown. Is it time to throw a party or something?

Comment by bg on May 24, 2008 at 8:53am: I don't think the paint flakes, not sure the vapors, if some there be after the first day, are an issue. I have never seen the paint flake, never seen a need to paint a Mastercool.

Comment by jeff on May 24, 2008 at 10:17am: i'll be up on the roof assessing the coolers in about 15 minutes!
just need to open a nice bottle of chianti first....

btw, i've sprayed the liquid tar stuff. it doesn't flake unless the underlying substrate is flaking or greasy.
one sniff tells me there's quite a boatload of VOC's in it - i'm sure the stuff cures REAL fast so i'm not concerned about fumes when running the cooler.

Comment by Uncle Jess on May 24, 2008 at 1:52pm: Kula Queen rocks! I moved out here from the East, without a clue about coolers. Nearly went ballistic after paying heating company for the first startup. After reading Kula's excellent tutorial, I'm doing it myself and saving big bucks, not to mention not having to wait forever for the service company to come! Kula, you are indeed the Queen in my book!