Swamp Cooling?

So, maintaining a constant temperature in my house is something the fiance is constantly nagging me about. I don't have a fridge capable of handling a fermenter, but I do have a guest bathroom.

I read somewhere that if I fill the tub up, and wrap a towel around it so that the bottom of the towel is in the water, this creates a cooling effect between 10 and 15 degrees. Is this accurate?

Thanks all!

Heard basically the same thing but I think you may want to use a fan to help evaporation.
Not too sure how cool it can get though. I imagine that all depends on the ambient temperature and humidity.
I will have to do the same thing when it gets warm here only I will probably just use a plastic tub in my spare(junk) room!

I don't do the evaporate cooling. I have a 60quart igloo on wheels that fits a carboy and half gallon - gallon frozen water jugs perfectly and by covering the top with towels to create a sort of dead space I can keep it really frikken cold.

Switching out two ice jugs twice a day I can keep it at 42 degrees for cold conditioning. If I switch out one once a day it stays about 55 and if I take the towel off it stays about 65.

I have a one of these $8
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sterilite-73-Quart-Storage-Bin-in-White-Set-of-4/8282896

I drop my 6 gallon plastic bucket fermenter in and fill it 1/2 to 3/4 of water.

Like Jdecarol, I drop in a frozen 20oz bottle of water twice a day to get it down a couple degrees.

- If it were sitting on it's own it'd be like 72-74.
- With a 20oz and the water it gets down to 66-68.
- The other day we had some freak heat, so I wrapped the fermenter in a t-shirt and dropped in a 1 gallon frozen water bottle and it dropped down 58-60 to degrees!

it's easier to swamp cool with a smaller container (such as rubber tub) that fits the carboy so you have less water to cool. Ice or ice bottles will help keep the temp down, if that doesn't keep your temp where you need it then you can toss a shirt or towel over the carboy or bucket and turn a fan on it.

I agree with @ReverseApacheMaster on the smaller container...

I use a 22 gallon rubbermaid container, set the fermenter in the center, and add 5 gallons of water with a towel wrapped around the carboy. My place stays at about 78 - 80, but the brew stays at 68 - 70. I have my ceiling fan always going on low and it keeps it cool. I throw a couple 20 oz frozen bottles in when the temp tries to climb during rapid fermentation.

I like to swap out the water and towel after a few days because I've had issues with the slight smell of mildew if i leave it too long.

Also, i remove the carboy from the swampy towards the end of fermentation on bigger belgians because the temp can drop real fast if it gets too cool in my place which has caused a stuck fermentation in my past (2 weeks ago).