Ever had to deal with a power blackout during the hot summer months? Then you know just how important keeping cool can be.
Over on The Good Survivalist we found a great tip to save you money and keep you cool:
Seems every year people die due to heat. Keeping your home cool in the summer can be very expensive if you use your air conditioner. This air conditioner is very simple to make, and can be made in a few minutes if you are handy.Even if you are not handy you’ll be able to make one of these DIY air conditioners. One of the nice things about this air conditioner is that it will give you up to 6 hours of coolness. This thing works so well you may need to put on a sweatshirt! To make one of these babies you need a few simple tools, a couple of 5 gallon buckets, along with a few other items. Everything is shown in the video.
I have tried it and just the ice and a fan doesn’t work. I used 30 lbs of ice and the outlet temperature was 72F in an 82 degree room. You would need some kind of heat sink or pump and radiator to make it work like an AC. All it does it humidify your room. Maybe if you use a fan that barely moves any air, but then it’s useless. Just buy an AC.
Save you money and get an AC for $100
Put the ice in a nice bag, apply to neck, head, underarms, etc. Way more efficient, faster, and a but load cheaper.
I’ve seen things like this made from styrofoam coolers etc, these are NOT air-conditioning … all they do is move chilled air over you at best. A true air.conditioning system removes humidity from the air… this device would actually ADD humidity. Plus getting ice during a power outage would not be easy and it would be better to simply wrap some in towels and apply directly if you had ice to spare.
If your using frozen water in a gallon bucket how will it add humidity.
Brittaney Carter
I tried this in a pinch when my ac went out on the road. It does work awesome for 15-30min until the hot air circulating through it melts the ice. I did it with a cooler. Still doesn’t work. Its a nice novelty.
I built one using an Omaha meats styrofoam shipping cooler (free), (2) $0.89 pvc elbows and (1) $6 clearance aisle fan. It works great. No, it does not add humidity to the air. That is why you use frozen jugs of water and not just put ice in it. I will say that fan and nozzle postion is critical. you need to position the ice jugs to form a wear, forcing the air to swirl inside of the cooler. Common sense will tell you that the longer the air is in contact with the frozen jugs, the cooler the air discharge will be. I cooled my shop with it. It worked just fine. And it ran for several hours before it melted the ice in the jugs. And yes you can run it when the power is out. I have a very small portable generator that you can carry that I use to run power tools when I am in situations where you either do not have power or it is very inconveinent to get power. Is this the way to go…. probably not….. but for those who say that it does not work, apparently you need to sharpen your engineering and fabrication skills
Britt Boltz
Donald Hafley