Using ice to air condition your egg

[Steven Tonnesen]

Has anyone had any experience using ice for air conditioning to take the edge off of summer camping in an egg?

[Dan Meyer]

Some people swear this works: http://www.kooleraire.com/Testimonials.htm - I'm not so sure.

Has anyone here tried this?

-- Dan Meyer

[curtis c]

i can see it working. Similar to the window "air conditioning" that used to come on old 40s n 50s cars. Its was simply a round tube that hung out the window that you filled with ice. once you drove the air would pass through the tube and ice then into your window.

[Steven Tonnesen]

Some people swear this works: http://www.kooleraire.com/Testimonials.htm - I'm not so sure.

Has anyone here tried this?

-- Dan Meyer

I tried a 12V automotive fan blowing overnight on a 5 gallon bucket of ice that I set in the U-Haul's sink. It seemed to do a great job of dropping the relative humidity from over 90% to about 50%, but I only got about a 6 degree F drop from ambient outside temperatures. My experimental procedure was flawed by the fact that the 5 gallon pail of water had not actually been frozen all the way, so I really don't know how much actual ice I was working with. We have a walk-in freezer at work that I had put the pail in, but it appears that 24 hours had not been enough to solidify all the water.

I will try this again, as it looks promising for limited applications, e.g., allowing bearable sleeping conditions in a U-Haul after nightfall in the summer in Florida. From a practical standpoint, the cost of 40 lbs of ice per night may make it not worth the while.

[Gina D.]

I do something of a similar concept on a smaller scale.

I have a couple of "Blue Ice" blocks that I use in my dog crates. One of my dogs is a stinker and he is often in "Jail" outside my trailer. Not so comfy for him on hot days.

I prop the Blue Ice block up on end and put a small RV fridge fan in front of it to blow the cooled air into the Jail. I rotate the Ice Blocks, one is in the freezer while the other is in use.

It works well in very confined spaces.. his Jail is often cooler than my trailer with the fantastic fan going full tilt. In 100+ degrees, it is barely effective though.

I have heard bad reviews on the Koolerair, I was looking into getting one until I started reading them.

Google "Koolerair Reviews" and see if they may have changed.

[curtis c]

thats hilarious, your pooch probably gets into trouble so he can go to "jail" where its cooler... Boy hes you you fooled good. hehe

[Dan Meyer]

The Colman Mach model 6727 air conditioner on my Scamp is rated at 7100 BTU's per hour. This is eqivalant cooling capacity of melting about 1100 pounds of ice in a day, or about 50 pounds per hour, or 12 ounces per minute.

As much as I'd really like to see this idea of ice air conditioning work, you will be constantly re-supplying ice if the unit is doing any good at all. Also, what are you going to do with all of the melt water?

I have seen this idea work on a railroad passenger car. Ice was used to produce cold water which was circulated through cooling coils, and air circulated over the coils and throughout the car. It worked quite well but you needed to supply 5 tons of ice per day to keep the car cool!

-- Dan Meyer

[Adrian W]

In dryer climates such as in the southwest, you do not need the ice to get air conditioning without refrigeration. Evaporation can cool it down pretty well, very well if it very low humidity. We are still using an evaporative air conditioner at our home in Las Cruces. But have gone to the second generation of them, such as Master Cool which uses just one thick pad on one end instead of 3 or 4 on the sides. In the '70s & maybe the '80s an evaporative a/c for auto use could be bought at JC Whitney, I believe. A friend had one on top of his suburban. Had to carry water to replace what evaporate from time to time. Would not work in Florida I am thinking, just add to the humidly in the egg. I have seen some small window units in Travel Trailers in the past, older units.

When googling Mater Cool I found something interesting and maybe more on tract with the topic. A Waterless Air Cooler! If it works, I do not have a clue. I see it is using the ice as coolent agent: uses two large gel ice packs. Advanced HD-Ice gel packs use a high-density gel. Each gel pack offers more cooling capacity than conventional ice packs.
http://www.waterlessaircooler.com/?gclid=C...CFRYiagodOlSxBQ

Evaporative still better, IMHO. Nothing to freeze. Here's what the new generation units look like:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=prod...&lpage=none

They do make portable swamp coolers: http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=prod...&lpage=none
http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do...=9&Find.y=8

Not sure were to put it in the egg, maybe in the bathroom pointing into the trailer.

Looks like I went off on a tangent, now to come back on target somewhat. Using the basic evaporative as coolant idea, one can cool an area down by weting a towel; hanging it over an open window (I would hang it outside) & have another window open with a fan drawing air out of the trailer. They cool green houses in our part of the world doing the same thing. Not a wet towel, but wet pads on one side of the green house and fan on the other pulling the air out. Rig up a window washer kit to spray water on the towel when it dries. Or better yet hang a collapsible water bottle set at a slow dip to keep the towel wet, maybe with a tube running along the top edge of the towel with holes to make it a soaker hose. Yup! It would work. It might even work in Florida (?), if one could sleep in the direct path as the air is coming in off the towel. They sell 12v fans which plug into a cigarette lighter.

It should work to keep a dog crate cool as well, perhaps using an electronics fan or a small RV fridge fan.