Recycled Styrofoam Air Conditioner! TKOR Creates An Efficient DIY Air Conditioner! 

We assembled this and it worked perfectly. Dropped the temperature by 35-40 degrees. But, we inserted first aid ice packs, instead of bagged ice, so they are re-freezable (and no melted water to drain). Thank you!

Ok, I have the cooler, I have the bottles, and I have the ice and plastic screen. Now all I need is a house...............

One thing to keep in mind, due to the lack of a seal, you won't get any airflow once your ice melts and the pipes are submerged in water. So adding a tap will also help in this regard in addition to easily draining the water.

I'm making one right now. Adding salt to the ice with make the melting point lower so the air will be even colder.

Without the bottles, it is a swamp cooler. It's called swamp because it turns your room into a swamp moisture-wise. You could try suspending the bottles and filling them with a mix of water and isopropyl alcohol. This will bring down the temperature of the bottles when put in the freezer and keep the water from freezing solid. With that, you should get convection current inside each bottle to keep the temperature lower.

Who else has the hottest room in their house 😂

I made one of these like 20years ago when i worked in a snack stand on the 12th T at a golf course. With a small grill in there it would get up around 100degrees in there in the summer. I used a 5gal bucket with lid. Cut hole in the lid for a fan. Cut hole in the side of bucket for cold air to come out. Had 2 milk jugs filled with water. 1 in bucket 1 in freezer and as 1 melted swap for the frozen. Worked amazing, and the ingenuity got me some extra tips and compliments from the members lol

This is my favorite video to share for summer help in ferret groups. They're so heat sensitive and I am always stressing people CAN do something to help them for cheap. Thanks for including your costs as well♡

Could you always include Celsius for your international viewers please? I think a lot of people would appreciate it.

Who wants to see TKOR make a hover board or do some woodworking videos

I like the step-by-step modifications done. Great video!!

Thanks so much for the idea. I just built mine on a bigger scale, using a Tupperware container. With the room sealed off (all the windows and doors closed), it actually does do something for the room temperature. Thanks so much! The idea works really well

Simple. Cheap. And effective.

This is a brilliant idea! Now I can make an AC for my dog when I'm out for work! That wouldkeep her cool :)

this is a great video with unique ideas for improving an already useful DIY

This might save my life, thanks for the tutorial/ experimenting!

this saved my life last summer it's amazing

I really like your videos but PLEASE add some kind of disclaimer that this project can NOT BE DONE WITH DRY ICE! There are so many dry ice fanatics in your community and I think it is a great risk not to mention the risk of asphyxiation that would come with dry ice due to the CO2! Great Video nevertheless!

Thank you so much! This design and all the suggestions below are going to make life SO much happier.

I don’t even have air conditioning in my house. I just have a heater and a fan. This will help me!

*THIS IS VERY USEFUL IN THE PHILIPPINES!*

epic find, perfect for the summer time!

I'm sure the reason Household Hacker used water bottles, besides the advantages you mentioned, was to prevent humidity from being added to the outgoing air. Regular a/c systems dry the air by condensing the moisture on the evaporator coils. Water bottles will accomplish the same thing, with moisture condensing on the surface of the bottles. Without the barrier of the plastic bottles, wouldn't the warm incoming air evaporate some of the water off the melting ice?

This AC BLOWS!! Great Job!! :) :) :)

Pretty impressive, though I believe one problem with the free ice cube design is that once the ice melts if the water rises to the opening of the PVC pipes the system doesn't work anymore.

Who else is watching from Australia during these bushfires?

Wow this project is so *cool*

Aussie kids where we all at? Being from Straya in the middle of.summer with no aircon I'm literally making this now. Thanks

Imagine if everything had rubber seals, it would work even better. Great video.

I did this in a tent when I went camping and it works amazing except for the fact that it humidifies air so much you're nice and cool and clammy lol

Reusable ice cube making bags. Makes it easier for regular use and creates the larger surface area exposure you get fro the cubes. Just ordered a bunch and going to make something similar for indoor grow space. Have been having real temp control issues in there and this udea is going to save a fortune. Whilst also allowing me to upcycle materials I already gave. Thanks for sharing this x

Thank you for your design!

refreezable icecubes should solve the "not reusable" problem nicely. since cubes work better than bottles. and no leaks .

Great modifications! I made one like the original when our AC broke. Keeps a room at least tolerable. I gave mine away after awhile, but now I want to make another one. Lol!

This is very informative idea for the million people spcially in the tropical country. Thank you very much for sharing this video.

Found a flaw. I built one of these, this morning. It worked great for about a half hour, but then enough ice melted that the bottom of the pipes were submerged in water and wouldn't allow air flow. I would stick to the plastic bottles, or maybe freeze water in metal pipe segments.

3:00 a cute lil frog is staring at me ;v;

If my ambient was 72 F I wouldn't any of these

Working at a hardware store has its perks right about now. We literally sell everything (except the ice, but we do sell ice makers lmao) needed

Ok I SOOOOOO need one of these. My room is always hot especially since it is summer at the moment. I would 100% make this 5°C IS PERFECT TEMPERATURE.

You could even install a small tap near the bottom of the cooler so that you can get ice cold water as the ice melts.

Next time heat your knife in a toaster to help it cut the foam easier ;)

A Excellent Video.. Highly Recommended.. Thank You Very Much Bro. For Sharing..

I made one, Thanxxxs for the info. Let the summer begin

HOW ABOUT YOU TRY IT WITH DRY ICE

Can we use this for a cheap gaming setup?

wow...amazing DIY air cooler than goes below 10 degrees centigrade... The best

Follow all the instructions and it will keep you cool. Great product. I recommend it.

Why not throw ice cubes all over your room and turn on the fan?

Put a keg spout at the bottom that way you keep cool and get ice water

Very nice explanation, ideas and practical realization. Keep on.

Looks like this DIY fan could be used to help keep you cool inside of a camping tent ⛺️😅🧊. It seems much more efficient than those little As Seen on TV table top models 💸. Thanks for sharing!😎👍

Make a rocket that has colored smoke when it launches. Or when it's coming down it has colored smoke as it's coming down.

Raw ice melts incredibly fast though. I use the thin freeze packs and did something similar to the grate at the bottom only instead of ice on top I made an array of the freeze packs so that they were barely separated from each other forcing the air between the packs. Used wooden rods to do the spacing like you did for the grate support. However I used a much larger foam chest and it would last at least five hours under the lowest fan setting before finally petering out. To refreeze I simply stuck the entire thing minus the fan into a chest freezer.

Man. Thanks for this experiment. Would be perfect for a tent on a very hot night. I do beleive I will be trying this project.

Really good!I will do it for my science project.

That moment you switched to °c 😱😮😱 (I don't understand °f)

and now put liquid nitrogen in it because why not :) Edit: And dry ice as the comments suggested ;)

Great tutorial brother thank you.

That's a great idea for people that do tent or van camping 👍.

Dad always used dry ice and taped it around the cooler so the lid wouldn’t pop off from filling it to the top. It works great. Dad did use regular ice too but we found the dry ice works way better. This is coming from Arizona idk about your area but it’s honestly a basic swamp cooler. Try it out I’m in wpb now and I still use it for the dogs in the summer and it helps loads

Some interesting tweaks to the original design minus the use of ice cubes. Polystyrene coolers sweat and do in fact leak liquids. Yes its very slow but they do still leak so its not something you want to use indoors if your putting ice cubes in it. Not to mention this thing will lose effectiveness once enough ice cubes melt and the waterline gets above your intakes at the bottom and you have to deal with a cooler full of water too. Cold packs or frozen bottles is the way to go.

YAY! a build video!

Great info. Frozen ice gets directly to the point...

Best cooler air conditioner I've seen yet. Easiest and effective

Going to have to try this while camping on a hot day

We're going to build this for our kids two-story tree fort. Thanks for the great video!

The only diy AC video that I was smart enough to follow.

If you use ice cubes, they'll melt. The water level will rise over your PVC downtubes and then they won't function. It's better to make it the way Household Hacker did and leave it un-modded in my opinion.

Can you make experiments with Molotow Cocktails?

Yup that was awesome!!

Gonna make one of these with the kids this summer for the tent!

Totally made one and using it right now! I'm finally comfortable in this 80 degree house. Gonna slept this thing LOL

I tried this on a 5 inch by 5 inch box. I used a 3 inch fan and the 2 inch pipes on the side (it kinda looked like it had horns.) I filled it half way with ice (the ac doesn’t reach my top bunk where my sister sleeps so she’s always sweating to death) it cooled down my entire room and I have the second biggest room in the house. I think the small scale works best, being small, cheap and convenient. It works really well and cools down a whole room. I’m sure the big one works though. I think this one is cuter though because I painted it like a ram (duh pink fur) and gave it a really chibi face.

Awesome! Thanks.

that is something I should consider shooping together at the end of the month, anything is better than the sweltering heat that the fan is just pushing around X_x

Problem with ice cubes instead of bottles is that, once the ice starts melting and water fills the gaps between the cubes, air can no longer circulate around the cubes but only over the top surface of the ice and water mixture. Together, the AREA of the cooling-surface and the temperature differential between the cooling-surface and the flowing air, determines the rate at which the cooling-surface absorbs heat energy from the air. So, you will get a bigger cooling effect at first, but the cooling effect will drop off rapidly as the surface area over which the air can flow decreases. Once all of the ice is floating in water, you'll get almost no cooling effect even tho the mix of ice and water remains at 32F and still has the capacity to absorb a lot of energy. The outflow temp might continue to be a degree of so less than the inflow temp, but not enough to be noticeably cooler. At that point, you'll need to start over again with fresh ice. With the ice and water contained in bottles, the area of cooling-surface remains constant. Therefore the system should continue to cool at pretty much a constant rate until ALL of the ice has melted. So, although at first you get less of a cooling effect with the original system, I think that it will provide more overall cooling (i.e., temp drop x length of time). If 10 degrees of cooling is enough to make your space reasonably comfortable, the original system is probably better. And, a problem with the final system shown in the video (where the vent tubes down to an air gap between two layers of ice) is that if the upper layer contains much ice, as it melts it could raise the water level up to the bottom of the vent tubes. At that point, air won't be able to circulate at all! The bottom line is that the amount of heat energy that the ice will absorb as it melts is a CONSTANT and depends only upon the amount of ice that you start with. Cold water can then absorb a much smaller amount of heat energy until it reaches ambient air temperature. Again, this is a CONSTANT amount that depends on the amount of H2O you start with and the just how hot the air is. You can do things to make the ice and cold water absorb energy more quickly and thus cause a bigger initial temperature drop, but you can't make it absorb more energy except by using more ice. Thus, the more "cooling effect" you get (i.e., the bigger the initial temperature drop), the less TIME the system will continue to cool.

This was a cool project! As you may be able to tell, pun intended!

Anyone else open their door at night when everyone is sleeping because ur ready to be quiet then you obnoxiously sneeze or do something loud

Well done 👍🏼

Do a Video of how long the AC lasts. Like the affect of the temperature coming out after an hour

Just so ya know. If u do enclose a medium size room, and keep it semi dark.... It definitely does help alot. Its not a true ac of course, but hey if youre in need in a camper, or if your electrics out, or just wanna do it.... Try one out. Two of them is perf in my opinion❤✅💥

You’re my hero ♥️

Checking out this vid again while suffering not being able to sleep in these summer nights🙃

A suggestion is to use metal bottles instead of glass or plastic bottles.

The only problem is if you don't freeze water into bottles, then as it melts, the water will be taken up as vapor and raise the humidity in the air ~ the higher the humidity the hotter it gets. So you make yourself hotter in the long run. This is a great idea, but just use water bottles ~ we use the huge 4 L (about 1 gallon) sized bottles for a whole lot of cool. PS another tip, freeze a couple bottles then when you take them out to use them, freeze another set ready for when the first ones defrost. Tried making this and it does take down the room temperature a couple notches. The thermometer should be hung in the room, not stuck in the box to give you are clear, true reading. But it does cool the room down a bit. Thanks for the video.

This is really a great idea!

Looks like I'll be building one of these suckers before the days out. My heat pump just croaked at 2am....😂

Can you make something similar to the DIY A/C, but instead make a DIY Heater for the upcoming winter?

Speaking from experience, one problem with using direct contact of air to ice is that it actually increases the humidity of the air in the room you're trying to cool, making it more difficult to cool. Stick to using re-freezable containers like gel-packs, small water bottles, pill bottles, fake ice cubes, etc. Perhaps using some kind of metallic mesh might also help cool more air in the same time interval. Optimum performance is going to be some compromise of how fast the airflow is (slower makes cooler air) and what you can tolerate as a delta-T.

Great job guys

Cool video. Gotta make one of these since Texas is over 100 degrees here lately.

Send the cold air through a tube in the center and up and out the sides. That way it self cools the intake tube and forces all the cold air out. Also you can put more ice in the box without worrying about water getting into the exhaust tubes.

I live in AZ it's 119 today thanks for this!!

Ideal for my snake room in the summer! thanks

Nice! You are awesome. Thanks so much.

The only problem with using bare ice cubes is that you'll also be blowing humidity into the room which, once the ice runs out, will make the room feel warmer in a hurry

I bet this would be perfect for a car that doesn't have ac, like mine lol

Thanks for the video! This definitely will help me as im a hot-shot driver down in Texas & although i have a 6.7L Power stroke Diesel leaving it on for days at a time definitely takes a toll. So while i sleep i can make one of these with a portable battery powered fan

thanks for sharing this :)