As there are still a good few weeks of summer left to the month before I have to switch on my Seattle furnace, I thought it would be great to share this amazing DIY air conditioning system with you all. We all know how expensive it can be to cool our homes, especially in mid July! With the Ice bucket challenge on Facebook going around for the ALS charity, I came up with a mad idea which I looked into and decided to make.
The air conditioner produced worked well! Here is a picture of the 5 gallon bucket used;
It is a non-compressor based setup which managed to take the room from 84F down to 40F, the bucket filled with ice lasted around 6 hours! The bucket itself it relatively easy to make.
The Materials Needed To Create The Bucket AirCon
- 1 5 Gallon Bucket with closable lid
- 1 Pail liner for the inside of the bucket, try styrofoam here, it works well.
- 2” uPVC pipe cut down into sections (For the air holes on the side)
- 1 Small face with a removable base, such as a desk fan.
Tools Of The Trade Required
- 2 1/4″ and 2 1/8″ hole saws
- A drill for the holes on the side of the bucket
- A boxer cutter or some other sharp tool for the lid
Let’s Begin
- Drill 2 ¼” holes in the bucket, you can drill more if you want more exhausts, bare in mind here, the more you have the less the cool air will actually blow out and it won’t go very far across the room, so try to keep it down to three max!
- Drill 2 ⅛” holes in the liner of the bucket behind, also be wary here as the base of the bucket cools a lot better than holes in the top!
- Cut a hole in the lid of your bucket, the fan must be measured first. You will want to make sure that you leave at least a few mm off so the lid catches the fan and sites nicely.
- Attached your cut uPVC tubes to the liner of your bucket, if these holes are too big you will just have to glue them in or even use washers which are a bit better.
- You can now fill the bucket with ice, I actually used a jug with water that was frozen a few hours before.
- Gently attach the lid and make sure it is firmly down on the bucket so no air at the top escapes.
- Place the fan on top and make sure it is secure and won’t actually fall into the bucket, this only happens if you did the hole too big.
- Turn on the fan and wait a few moments whilst the air swirls around the bucket, give it time to catch the ice and there we have it!
I was actually surprised by the amount of cool air this kicks out. Also, the great this is, if you are an eco-friendly person you can opt for a solar powered fan to make it that even more environmentally friendly!
I have seen people do this on a larger scale as well with huge oil drums, the only problem with that is you need a constant supply of ice, and a LOT of it. Good luck and have fun with it.
