3 Easy DIY Solar Air Conditioners

If you are looking for an inexpensive way to beat the heat this summer, there are plenty of very effective DIY options you can try.  A while back we featured a solar powered air cooler by Desertsun02 on Youtube – an awesomely practical idea for cheap cooling – and he has several other homemade air coolers he has built and tested out with great results.  All are very cheap to build, requiring less than $30 in materials.  They are also simple to set up and they consume a fraction of the energy that traditional air conditioners do.

All of these air coolers are powered with solar panels.  Since they require ice to operate, a common concern is about how to make ice off the grid.  Desertsun02 addresses that in this video, so be sure to check it out.

Below is the original ice chest air cooler we featured before, along with 2 more great ideas.

1. Ice Chest Air Conditioner

Homemade air conditioners don’t get much simpler than this.  This setup uses only a foam ice chest, a PVC pipe, and a 12 volt fan.  A block of ice is kept in the chest and the fan blows warm air from the room over the ice.  The air that is blown back out into the room stays around 40 degrees fahrenheit.  The fan here is hooked up to a single 15 watt (1 amp) solar panel.  This can provide up to 10 hours of cool air.

by www.offgridworld.com