A cheap way to chill out: Make your own air conditioner
An easy, quick and cheap solution to high-priced or hard-to-find air conditioners could be as close as your garage or hardware store.
Inspired by promises of air conditioners for $8 US advertised on the Internet, The Province put together a do-it-yourself unit that proved the claims weren’t full of hot air.
We used a large plastic bin ($11.99) with a lid that was outfitted with a small fan ($12.99) and two bendable connector elbow tubes from the plumbing department ($5.73 each) and filled the bin with plastic frozen water bottles.
It cost us a bit more — about $40 for everything but the water bottles — but we fashioned a rather primitive but effective unit that kept a small bedroom cooler by about five degrees overnight on a test run.
Recent higher-than-normal temperatures in the high 20s (which “feel like” more than 30 C) have propelled usually cold-blooded Metro Vancouverites to scoop up the ACs and fans almost as quickly as they are stocked, said Scott Slade, manager of RONA’s Grandview store, while standing one hot day in front of a skid of air conditioners that he expected to disappear by the next day.
Sweaty and sleepless hordes have been paying about $120 for a window unit with 5,000 BTUs of cooling power or up to more than $600 for larger wheeled portable units, 10,000 BTUs and up, which start at around $300 to $400.
So there’s that saving for do-ityourselfers.
Plus, B.C. Hydro calculated — Hydro’s cost estimate is based on Step 1 of its residential rate — that a 5,000-BTU portable air conditioner running for six hours a day for a month will use 95 kilowatt hours (kWh), enough to cool a 150-squarefoot room, for a total minimum monthly cost of $7.57.
A 10,000-BTU device, enough to cool up to 450 square feet, would use 189 kWh and cost $15.06 for the month. A floor fan that uses 100W, meanwhile, for 10 hours a day for 30 days would use 18 kWh and cost at least $1.43 for the month, according to B.C. Hydro spokeswoman Simi Heer.
The bottles of water can be frozen at no extra electricity, she said in an email.
“Keeping frozen bottles of water in the freezer will keep a stable temperature in the freezer, therefore the freezer doesn’t have to work as hard and will not use more power,” she said.