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/diy/ - Do It Yourself

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269130 No.269130 [Reply] [Original]

I want to cool my apartment for free, /diy/. Or at least very cheap.

I have a window AC. Last month (hottest July on record, beating out 1936 temps during the dust bowl), and I spent 80 dollars air conditioning my apartment.

However, I have free water in my unit. I want to somehow build a simple AC unit that will cool at least one of my rooms.

I've got a box fan (can acquire other fans, etc). Anyone have any ideas on how I could design such a thing? I was considering some kind of design involving blowing air over a body of cold water that's constantly replenishing.

>> No.269134

There is no way to cool your apartment that wont cost you money and that works well. 80 bucks for electric isn't even that bad. You could try the ghetto cooler method: a box fan and some copper tubing with ice water flowing through it but those make poor coolers and you still gotta cool the ice. Water fresh out of your tap wont be anywhere near as cold so you're results will be that much worse.

>> No.269138

Best to just go elsewhere with AC and camp it out. Starbucks, McD's, BK, anywhere with seating and lax rules about it. Go for the matinee and theater hop until dinner. Come home and run the AC on a timer if possible. Wake up and leave for the next spot.

My GF's apartment is like an oven... it just traps heat and no amount of AC does anything. Right now the thing has been going for 5 hours and it's still 79 degrees in a 12 by 12 bedroom. Can't even imagine how much her landlord is paying, whatever, it's their fault for making a shitty apartment.

>> No.269141

>>269138
You think 79 is hot? What kind of sissy are you? That's what your thermostat should be set at during the summer. The 12 x 12 room I'm in right now is 82 degrees.

>> No.269150

An AC will struggle if the house can't keep the heat out. Houses in northern climates that are insulated for cold winters are more efficient to cool in the summer because the insulation and thermal windows that keeps the heat in during the winter also works to keep the heat out during the summer.

Short of replacing windows, there are some things you can do.
- Those plastic expandable sections that come with window ACs do nothing. Get a sheet of Styrofoam house insulation, cut it and insulate the window where the AC is installed.
- Check for drafts around all exterior windows and doors and seal them with chalking or weather stripping.
- Apply Infrared or "heat rejection" window film to the interior glass surfaces of your windows.
- Install heavy drapes or pull down blinds, and keep them closed during the sunniest part of the day.

>> No.269151

Wet a towel, peg it to a clothes drying rack, aim a fan at it, and voila, evaporative cooler.

Add more towels and an osmotic amwetting system for convenience. (Stick the ends of the towels in a bucket of water.

>> No.269152

If the humidity is low you can make an evaporative cooler very cheap. Just a fan blowing across a wet cloth will cool a room pretty well. If its humid you need refrigerative cooling, that going to cost a lot more.

>> No.269154

>>269151
This.
Also, you can just put a wet towel(like a dish towel) directly on you and let a fan blow on your body.
Feels good man.

>> No.269155

>>269141
You think that's hot? It's almost 7am and its just under 100 degrees.

>> No.269157

>>269151

*Automatic wetting system.

I use it in front of a screen door when it gets over ~105 here. Otherwise it's just a fan and harden the fuck up. Beer helps immensely too.

>> No.269158

>>269155
texas?

>> No.269160

>>269158
SoCal. Can't go outside for a smoke without having to put a new layer of deodorant.

>> No.269162

>>269130
>I spent 80 dollars air conditioning my apartment.

That's actually really good. Some people around where I live spend about $200.

I beat extreme heat with box fans in the windows at night and during the day I close up the place early in the morning. the thermal mass of the place keeps it cool until around noon-1pm then it starts to really warm up. as soon as the temps inside are close to the temps outside I open the windows and turn on the fans. When it is scorching and 90F+ inside, I wear a wet do-rag around my head and keep my bare feet in buckets of cool water. I drink plenty of water too.

I've noticed at ACE hardware they are now selling very small window AC units that are fairly low wattage. Those were on sale though. On the website the cheapest one is this,

>Perfect Aire® 5000 BTU Window Air Conditioner (PAC5000)
>$114.99
>110/120 volt
>4.8 amp/ 515 watts
http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4286682

The wattage is reasonable.

>>269157
>beer

Alcohol does dilate the capillaries of your vascular system. This causes the sensation of your body heating up as your extremeties like toes, nose, ears, and fingers have more blood running through them and heat up. This also helps you radiate heat out of your body far quicker than normal.

In extreme cold, you should only drink a small amount in order to keep your extremities from getting frost bit, but you have to watch out for causing your core temps to go down and suffering hypothermia. In a survival situation where there's not heat source, don't drink alcohol and take the frost bite instead or you'll risk death.

>>269155
Where I'm at, it is the end of the season, or it feels like it. Nights are colder than normal. snow will be coming.....

>> No.269192

you guys can't put thick ass curtains over all the windows?

What area do you live in?

>> No.269224

>>269130
What you want is called a "swamp cooler", and they work, but it'll raise the humidity in your house dramatically and mold growth becomes a problem.

Paint your house the whitest white you can manage.

>> No.269226

If you have free water, get some big containers or bags and fill them with water. Then freeze them solid in your freezer. Take the blocks of ice and sit them in front of fans. A lot of fans and a lot of blocks of ice all over your apartment may help.

Alternatively, buy a blow up pool and fill it with ice and water and chill in that.

>> No.269232

>>269226
..except that all a refrigerator does is move heat from inside the box to the outside of the box, so you end up generating more heat in the end than you're moving out of the water to make ice, which in turn just gets melted to try to cool the house, which ends up slightly warmer for your trouble. You have to move the heat OUTSIDE the house to cool it.

Put solar panels on your roof to run your air conditioner.

>> No.269235
File: 25 KB, 328x310, 328px-Fermat's_spiral.svg.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
269235

Have the water do two things:
1, Run through, and thus cool, a copper pipe bent in a spiral - pic related.
2, Have the water push a fan, blowing air through the spiral.

This will most likely result in 3, you will have to pay for your water in the future.

>> No.269237

Swede here. 64.5 F is what my thermostat is set to.

>> No.269384

False economy niggas:

80 dollars a month is about 2.50 a day. You can't buy ice for 2.50 a day and have it last all day.

Best bet if you are ghetto is a swamp cooler. Cheap to operate, but even the best ones work poorly. Expect to still be hot.

>> No.269401

>>269384
All of my why

It depends on the climate you fuckstick. If you live in a dry climate then a swamp cooler is GOAT

>> No.269404

>>269401

Anything over 72F is nigger tier cooling.

>> No.269410

>>269404
Boy I get cold in temperatures bellow 74. If I had it set lower than 72 I'd be freezing my ballsack off all the time.

>> No.269411
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269411

Not sure how well this works.

>> No.269516

>Build a very small shell with a comfortable sturdy recliner in it that will last forever.

>Insulate the ever loving shit out of it, all sides. Put computer outside, run wires to all your periphrials through an air tight hole.

>Build adjustable rack to put monitor, keyboard, and mouse on at comfortable distance from yourself while reclining inside the shell.

>Use passive cooling in your apartment, active cooling in your shell.

>Cooling a tiny space is much cheaper, especially with god tier insulation.

>Turn the entire apartment into passive cooling systems or storage.

>Live inside your gaming/sleeping cave, only exiting to use the bathroom or kitchen.

>Modify at will, constantly improving your cooling and sound proofing with new ideas and upgrades.

>> No.269534

>>269516

OMG this is brilliant, even if you dont have cooling issues. Its like the tech pod of the future

>recliner
>pc with multiple monitors rigged to ceiling/sides of pod
>set up flat surface/mousepad and keyboard tray to recliner
>surround sound system
>drink holders or whatever extras you want
>maybe even soundproof your pod

This is getting beautiful, it would satisfy all my media junkie needs

>> No.269539

>>269534
>>269516

The only downside is that most modern homes (and retrofitted older homes) rely on active cooling to reduce humidity, so there would be a good possibility that doing this would increase humidity in your home to the point that you would possibly get mold and have other problems.

>> No.269541

>>269534

It's what I ended up doing after living in misery in the stiflingly hot upper story of an apartment complex filled with white and mexican trash that let dogs bark at all hours and had walls like cardboard.

I also used a leather chair that reclined all the way back into a very comfortable bed like surface, so with the filter on the AC and the leather, it was also a hypoallergenic environment.

Never heard anything outside ever again, and it was always a perfect temperature inside.

The only downside was getting in an out. If I ever need to do it again I'll probably make it slightly bigger with room to stand up in and an 'airlock' type door for ultimate convenience and climate control savings.

>> No.269543

>>269539

Well, as long as it's an apartment it's not your problem. They should provide central air if that's a worry for them. :)

>> No.269544

>>269539

To add to my post:

You could prevent this from happening and still have your pod if you ducted cold output air from a window unit or something into the pod, but had it draw intake from air inside the living space. You could also have a small outlet for cold air to escape your pod, at least partially cooling the rest of your living space; you could easily do this while still keeping your pod nice and cool.

The only thing is if that cooling device isn't enough to dehumidify the whole living space, you would still likely have the above mentioned issues.

Also keep in mind that you would want to make sure that the pod's cooling device is venting to the outside of your building, otherwise you're just going to be heating your apartment.

>> No.269545

>>269543

True. I was thinking for people doing in this in their own homes (lots of the older affordable homes have shitty or no insulation) as trying to deal with a huge mold/whiterot/other problem is never very fun.

>> No.270463
File: 56 KB, 842x653, Ammonia Absorption Refrigeration Cycle.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
270463

If you know what your doing and you have some scrap refrigerators and what not lying around you could try building an ammonia absorption refrigeration cycle. It's a little complex but has low energy requirements.

>> No.270480

Walk around in underwear, get screens for your windows and open them up at night.

>> No.270483

Only cool the rooms that your in most of the time, I close off my bathroom and kitchen + spare bedrooms. Still a miserable 80 degrees here

>> No.271219

>>269411
need help with this. i would use a submbergible pump that feeds the water back in, closed loop. i looked on walmart and you can get 58 quart coolers with wheels that supposedly keep ice frozen for 5 days. if you were to fill it with ice and freezable ice packs and use a pump to run the water through the copper pipes/over front of fan then it would be an awesome, cheap setup. would anybody think condensation would be a problem since the cooler is so well insulated and everything is closed loop? outside of possibly developing on copper wire/plastic tubing

>> No.271222

>>271219
i would store the cooler in an even larger tupperware container or something with insulation too. anyone know the efficiency for all of this? would the cold airflow from the fan be a noticable difference?

>> No.271227

>>271222
>>271219
the cooler would be constantly filled with enough water so that it would be full when you add more ice packs. once the looped water raises the cooler's temperature to a certain amount you would replace the ice packs with ones already in the freezer waiting to go (about 20-40) and just reverse the process. on mild days you would probably only have to do this process one or twice

>> No.271231

>>271227
>>271222
>>271219
a box fan run 24/7 costs about 10 a month to run. im going to try this setup when i get paid and run temperature and humidity checks. cooler, new fan, tubing and water pump would only cost $50. building an extra containment unit using extra insulation will have to be determined later depending on the results i get from the preliminary test.

>> No.271275

It costs me 110/month to run my central air at 70.

Do you guys stay home all day? I spend maybe 12 hours in and 12 out of my house. I think I might try window film and a box fan setup at night though, for ultimate niggatry.