Dial 7625 - Ezi-Stat Evaporative Swamp Cooler Thermostat Controller

I researched all of the available thermostats and controllers for swamp coolers and this particular model seemed to be the best solution for my "new" 1970s home. Installation was a bit tricky because the unit is pretty bulky and needless to say, there are a lot of wires coming into that single gang electrical box and this adds even more wires in addition to the included wire nuts. The electrical connections were easy to make but shoving it all back in the box takes some careful arrangement of wires. This thermostat works great, even though mine is mounted in a less than ideal location directly below the swamp cooler vents. I find that I can thermostatically control the cooler but have to set the temperature lower than what I want the room temperature to average. It favors low fan speed for economy, only rarely running in high speed for short periods of time. We are now comfortable and saving a lot of water and energy since even on 90+ degree days so far this year, the swamp cooler only cycles on for a few minutes at a time several times per hour, and we now just leave it on round-the-clock for comfort and convenience. My next task is to add adjustable "Up Vents" to each bedroom and the kitchen so I can control air flow to each room and keep my windows closed and locked.Note that there is an automatic 2 minute pre-wetting of the pads before the fan kicks on but this only seems to occur when the swamp cooler is started up after being shut off for a period, and not when cycling on and off under thermostatic control. The pre-wet delay can be overridden too. The thermostat has a timer which allows for the swamp cooler to be either turned on or off 2, 4, or 8 hours in the future. This has little value for me, but I would have paid more to have true programability based on a weekly/daily clock.One piece of advice I was given was to double check that the needed common white wire is present in the electrical box. The common wire is not connected to the typical rotary switch which I was replacing, but fortunately it was present in the electrical box, so I was able to easily connect it to my new thermostat.This thing is nice! As a life-long AC user, maybe I can live with a swamp cooler after all!

Install was easy. It's really nice to have a thermostat for our evaporative cooler that will turn off and on automatically. I don't have a temperature gauge near the thermostat to check accuracy. This isn't a negative of the product but the thermostat being right near where the cooler blows doesn't give accurate room temp. Just adjust the temperature setting lower. It works well turning off and on when it is suppose to. Pre-soaks pads before turning on. All the settings work. Nice not to wake freezing at night because I didn't turn it off. Would recommend for sure.

I loved this thermostat at first.... but now, 3 years later it is a dud. It is malfunctioning and won't adjust flow.... strange...

I'm not very impressed with this thing. I'm an electrician and wiring this thing was a pain! The wiring itself is simple and straight forward but getting all the wires to fit in a standard single gang box was a challenge. You have 1 hot 3 switch legs a neutral and a ground. Thats 5 splices and an unused ground minimum assuming there isn't anything else in the box and the unit itself sits 3/4 or 1 inch in the box. This needs to be installed in a 4x4 box with a single gang mudring which is entirely unheard of in a residential house.Poor design, it should be made to fit over a 2 gang box to allow room for wiring.

single gang box fit

I recently purchased an older home that had an evaporative cooler (aka swamp cooler) and manual switch to control it. The cooler works almost too well and required frequent trips to the switch to turn off and on to maintain the temperature inside the house at a comfortable level. This is especially annoying at night, needless to say! Also, I leave my dog at home when I'm out of town (he's in charge of security) and he isn't quite tall enough to run the manual control.After a lot of research and reading, I finally settled on the Dial 7625 thermostat. I am extremely pleased with this product and glad I chose it! It does a wonderful job of controlling the temperature of my house to within about 1 degree of where I set the thermostat. It features an Auto mode that works exactly as you think it should and I rarely use any other mode. The automatic mode will pre-wet the pads by turning the pump on for a short time before starting the blower, if necessary. This helps a lot with keeping the temperature stable as it prevents an initial blast of hot air from being blown in until the pads are wet. Great feature!There are occasions when I do use the manual modes and they work as expected, too. You can control the blower speed by pressing the Fan button until you cycle through Off/Low/High to find the mode you want. Likewise, the Cool button does the same, but with the pump activated. Another really nice feature is the Timer button. If the unit is on, it will turn it off in the selected amount of time (2, 4, or 8 hours). If it is off, it will turn it on in the selected amount of time.Other reviewers mentioned that it might be wise to replace your single gang switch box with a double gang box. I will echo that opinion. I found the amount of wires on the existing manual switch to be almost too much to fit in the box, and the extra wires on this control will make it very difficult in a single box. I very strongly recommend that you purchase the DIAL 7616 wall plate and a double gang old work box like the Carlon BH234R Outlet Box, Old Work, 2 Gang, 3-7/8-Inch Length by 2-3/8-Inch Width by 3-5/8-Inch Depth, Blue with this thermostat. It will save you a LOT of hassle, believe me. Also, save the instruction sheet AND the cardboard packaging label that comes with it. They both have instructions that you will want/need.One last note, this is a line voltage thermostat, as I think pretty much all evaporative cooler controllers are. That means you MUST disconnect power at the breaker box before you work on this! Also, as you disassemble the existing switch, I recommend you take a picture before you unhook any wires, just for future reference. Then, attach tape with numbers on each wire as you remove them so you can identify which wires go where. It will make hooking them up to the new switch much easier. In my case, many of the wires were the same color and I had to use a volt meter to track down which was which. Five minutes of taking notes will save you a lot of hassle trying to figure it out afterwards!