Stop paying AC costs. New Way.

[gypsyrodeo]

It's as good as high end air conditioner at the cost of running a fan.

A friend of mine is doing this and it works great. He doesn't buy ice, he just freezes a few plastic bottles of water. Also unlike in the video, he plugs directly into the wall. I've seen it work. Check out this youtube video

Edited April 24, 2014 by bazmlb

[gypsyrodeo]

So what do you all think about this cool DIY AC?

[eyecatcher]

Only today I had the wife asking me to check out the insulation costs to line the top floor ceiling.

As the air con is simply ineffective these days.

I don't want to risk climbing in the roof space so I will try this tomorrow.

Certainly easy to do, and if I pull it off I am going to be very popular with my girls

Good idea about the bottled water aswell, saves on flooding I suppose.

a trip to makro tomorrow for me.

[Som wat]

Perfect for humid countries.

You could messure the daily mould growt with a meter stick.

[bobo42]

A single 12000 BTU air conditioner running for 24 hours will have the same cooling power as melting approximately 2000 lbs of ice. That equals about 30 frozen 1.25L coke bottles per cooling hour.

My very small house has 4 AC units with a combined capacity of 63k BTU (which is just enough in the hot season). So, I would need to have a ready source of 159 frozen coke bottles per operating hour to cool my house to a similar temperature as my current AC system. Depending on the outside temperature, I'd venture a guess that I would need around 1500-1900 frozen bottles per day in total. Unless I have a really really cheap and reliable ice supplier, I think I'll stick to normal AC.

[eyecatcher]

Thank god we have a heating and refrigeration engineer on the board.

I will forget the 159bottles now and opt for a block of ice.

[Som wat]

Eat the ice and fart.

Will be just as good.

[gypsyrodeo]

@bobo42…you're hilarious! The way you throw around numbers ...

If I didn't see it work I would probably fall for your engineer poseur missive. Very funny stuff

For all of you who would like to take this subject seriously, please note that all my friend does is freeze 6 one liter bottles of water. He takes 2 out at a time and puts them in the styrofoam container. It takes them a couple of hours to melt; when they do, he takes them out, puts them back in the freezer and takes 2 more out, and put them in the styrofoam container and rotates on that schedule.

Remember to place the 2 bottles about 5 inches away from the PVC tube so the air hits on the way out. You'll be shocked on how cold it is….

[gypsyrodeo]

@Som wat…why don't you freeze your excrements and put that in the styrofoam container so that your home stays cool and maintains the same scent level that you're used to...

[daoyai]

Bobo42 is missing the point, he describes cooling a house, thousands of cubic feet of space while this devise is for cooling the small space a body actually occupies at any given moment.

[bobo42]

Thank god we have a heating and refrigeration engineer on the board.

I will forget the 159bottles now and opt for a block of ice.

Well then, you'll need to obtain a cubic block of ice measuring around 60cm on each side and weighing around 200kg for every cooling hour you want. If you figure your "old-fashioned" AC is only running the compressor around half the time on a hot day, then you'll only need a block weighing in around 2300kg and is around 1.3m on each side for each day of cooling. Of course you'd probably want that delivered staggered out, to avoid all of your ice melting while its waiting to be deployed to the fan-boxes around your home... Or you could build a dedicated storage facility for your ice... Or you could buy freezers and make your own ice throughout the day...

This idea is just getting more and more practical the more I think about it. Truly the wave of the future.

[Thailand]

This is really cool!

[Jangot]

Some overlooked "hidden" costs here...

Don't forget, you are not gettng that ice for free.

Your fridge is having to work hard to freeze that water

So, instead of being in "off" cycle for much of the time, it is going to be much busier, hence consuming much more electricity.

[JesseFrank]

Thank god we have a heating and refrigeration engineer on the board.

I will forget the 159bottles now and opt for a block of ice.

Did you notice that he said 159 bottles per HOUR ?

[northernjohn]

A single 12000 BTU air conditioner running for 24 hours will have the same cooling power as melting approximately 2000 lbs of ice. That equals about 30 frozen 1.25L coke bottles per cooling hour.

My very small house has 4 AC units with a combined capacity of 63k BTU (which is just enough in the hot season). So, I would need to have a ready source of 159 frozen coke bottles per operating hour to cool my house to a similar temperature as my current AC system. Depending on the outside temperature, I'd venture a guess that I would need around 1500-1900 frozen bottles per day in total. Unless I have a really really cheap and reliable ice supplier, I think I'll stick to normal AC.

Use Pepsi Max they have 1.45 liter bottles.

[JoeThePoster]

I just leave the fridge door open.

[Chicog]

Why not just take some of the load off your AC with a home made heat exchanger?

[rebo]

These redneck energy saving solutions will obviously never die out ...

Unfortunately we can't outsmart yet the physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy

The shown system may be suitable to save money keeping only a limited area of a room cooler than the surrounding area e.g. a working place. But if you try to cool the entire room down to the same temperature as an aircon does you will probably not save a single Baht. Of course it also depends on the efficiency of your freezer/aircon.

[Som wat]

Build your house out of ice.

Problem solved.

[heybruce]

I just leave the fridge door open.

My father managed an appliance store and he actually had people do this, burn out the compressor, and try to get the refrigerator repaired under warranty.

For those of you exceptionally clueless about thermodynamics, this will only cool the inside of your house if you cut a refrigerator sized hole in the wall and put the part of your refrigerator with the cooling coils outside. Then it will do a poor job of cooling the house until the compressor burns out.

BTW Joe, I like your icon. "The Good Soldier Svejk" by Jaroslav Hasek. Too bad he died before he could finish the series, it was a darkly hilarious take on a tragic war.

[gypsyrodeo]

ahhhhhh living the good life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHbQYajfGqM#t=358

[jacko45k]

Build your house out of ice.

Problem solved.

I did, but when I came back from Tesco I couldn't find it.

It isn't at the bottom of the hill.

[maswov]

Its a neat idea and good if you want to take some cooling outside, it is not very practical for indoor use though. If you consider thermodynamics, the thermal energy (heat) will transfer from the warming location to the cooler. In and AC system the air blows across the evaporator and the heat in the air is transferred to the refrigerant and cooler air remains in the space. Then in the condenser, which is outside, air blows across the coils removing the heat from the refrigerant.

In this system 1st you must make the ice. When you put the water in the freezer you will remove the heat from the water and it will be released into the room via the refrigerator's condenser. Then you will take the ice and use it to remove the heat from the room, but where does it go? It stays in the room. Put the water back in the freezer and repeat the cycle.

[Mousehound]

The advantage of this is you gat a cold pool as well.

[Beetlejuice]

Good idea, BUT:

That device would only be suitable for a very small area, would not make any difference to even a small sized room and probably the lifespan of the ice would only be about 30 minutes, perhaps an an hour in cooler temperatures.

For an average sized room, this device would not only be non viable but completely useless.

[oztaurus]

I checked out a place to rent last night and the two compressor units (one for each bedroom) were actually mounted inside the kitchen, apparently making the rest of the house unihabitable while the air-conditioners are in use. Apparently the Thai owner who installed them was told about the .... inadvisability of this, but was afraid that people might steal them if they were mounted outside.

TIT

[haveaniceday]

Why don't you just enjoy Thailand cheap power bills ?

Is it true that Yinlucks new pricing policy will see these double in the next 13 months ?

[Thaddeus]

So what do you all think about this cool DIY AC?

Get a very large plastic tank, fill it full of water and sit in it.

Conservation of energy doesn't mean taking the batteries out.

[MILT]

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A single 12000 BTU air conditioner running for 24 hours will have the same cooling power as melting approximately 2000 lbs of ice. That equals about 30 frozen 1.25L coke bottles per cooling hour.

My very small house has 4 AC units with a combined capacity of 63k BTU (which is just enough in the hot season). So, I would need to have a ready source of 159 frozen coke bottles per operating hour to cool my house to a similar temperature as my current AC system. Depending on the outside temperature, I'd venture a guess that I would need around 1500-1900 frozen bottles per day in total. Unless I have a really really cheap and reliable ice supplier, I think I'll stick to normal AC.

This is based on a 24 hr running AC. Most people do not run the AC 24 hrs a day.

So no argument here. Let's see I just watch a video with a average block of Ice cooling capacity for 10 hrs a day.

Also running on a solar panel?

Thus making your argument null.

Personally I am going to make a bunch of these and start saving funds for a trip to the Artic.

[heybruce]

@bobo42…you're hilarious! The way you throw around numbers ...

If I didn't see it work I would probably fall for your engineer poseur missive. Very funny stuff

For all of you who would like to take this subject seriously, please note that all my friend does is freeze 6 one liter bottles of water. He takes 2 out at a time and puts them in the styrofoam container. It takes them a couple of hours to melt; when they do, he takes them out, puts them back in the freezer and takes 2 more out, and put them in the styrofoam container and rotates on that schedule.

Remember to place the 2 bottles about 5 inches away from the PVC tube so the air hits on the way out. You'll be shocked on how cold it is….

Is your friend's freezer inside or outside the house? If it's inside he is generating more heat by freezing the water than he removes by letting the ice melt. If it's outside then you will get some cooling inside the house, but remember that both air conditioners and freezers work in the same manner; they have compressors and heat exchangers that take advantage of the fact that gas increases in temperature when it is compressed and cools when it expands. A freezer is designed to cool small areas and an air conditioner to cool large areas. I haven't checked bobo42's numbers but they look about right.