Inland entrepreneur comes up with cool invention [Banning, CA]

A muffler-shop owner's solar-powered air conditioner is drawing rave reviews.

source: Paul DeCarlo Press-Enterprise 2005.4.23

Roger Pruitt couldn't stand watching his customers suffer in the heat.

It was sometimes a matter of life and death. Five years ago, several people in the state perished from the heat during rolling blackouts.

Pruitt, a muffler-shop owner, invented a solar-powered air conditioner that costs less to run than regular coolers.

"I woke my wife up in the middle of the night," Pruitt recalled. "I said, 'You know what, I'm gonna build a solar air conditioner and I'm gonna take it to one of these power companies and say this is what you need to do.' "

Blackouts threaten Southern California each summer when the power supply is tight.

"The whole western United States is interconnected," said Gregg Fishman, spokesman for the California Independent System Operator. "We're in competition for those megawatts. When peak demand is at its highest, it's due to air conditioning in California."

[photo credit & caption: David Bauman / The Press-Enterprise "The Cow," the first solar-powered air conditioner Roger Pruitt built in his barn in Banning, has been mass produced. One hundred prototype units await delivery after a $1.3 million investment.]

Pruitt's two-ton SolCool unit mixes the technologies of a swamp cooler, air conditioner and solar-powered generator. It costs $4,500. The self-contained solar unit cools a typical home while cutting the monthly power bill by two-thirds.

And the cool air keeps coming -- blackout or not.

Now, 100 prototypes await delivery in a Banning warehouse on Lincoln Street.

It all began with a visit by a well-connected father-son team from Fort Worth, Texas, who heard about Pruitt's invention.

Brad Corbett Jr., the son of a former owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, who now runs S&B Technical Products Inc., visited Banning with his father three years ago.

They came to see "The Cow." Pruitt built a primitive air conditioner in his barn. His family painted the plexiglass housing surrounding the unit a bovine-like white with black splotches.

"It's an amazing product," Corbett said during a recent phone interview. "We believe this is the 'Model T' version of this technology."

The Corbetts asked Pruitt what he needed for research and development.

"I told him I want a million dollars and a new bass boat," Pruitt said.

So far, the Corbetts have invested $1.3 million and offered a factory in Costa Rica for manufacturing prototypes. He received a gleaming Nitro 175 sport-fishing boat out of the deal. The boat sits on a 3,200-acre spread just south of Banning where Pruitt keeps rodeo horses and Longhorn cattle.

Keith Hudkins, a senior adviser to the chief engineer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration headquarters in Washington, D.C., worked for free as an outside consultant. NASA has no plans to use the machine.

"It's all about efficiency," Hudkins said. Refrigerated dry air creates evaporation that uses less power, he said. "When the power goes out, the backup system needs to have sunshine."

The solar unit also purifies the air as it cools it, a plus for the smog-choked Inland region, Pruitt said.