Cooling Your Home For Free

David Trammel's picture

I am of the opinion that climate change, and the resultant increase in yearly temperture events aka heat waves, is going to be a major source of deaths in the coming decades. I'm sorry, forget 2 degrees as a target, we are probably looking at 4 degrees for sure if not 6.

If you aren't one of the 9point9 percent of economic elites, and can afford to just turn up the AC, then prepare for a lot of sweat.

(For an article on why its not the "1 percent" any more, click here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/ )

So anything that helps me stay cool and is free and I can build myself is great. Enter this invention from Bangladesh.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/bangladeshi-inventor-creates-electricity-free-164922774.html

"Bangladeshi inventor Ashis Paul has figured out how to re-purpose plastic bottles into a low-cost, easy-to-make, electricity-free air conditioner that can help the country's poorest better tolerate the sweltering summer heat.

The science behind the Eco-Cooler is based on the idea that the bottleneck becomes a funnel that compresses and cools the air that runs through it by about five degrees, according to the Eco-Cooler website. It's the same principle that governs blowing air through pursed lips — the air comes out cooler despite the body's 98-degree-Fahrenheit temperature."

Odd coincidence: In the process of preparing for zine extracts from an edition of "The Discourses on Iron and Salt" I came upon this footnote:

"Ox-eye" window ( 甕 牖 ) an expression meaning either a broken jar used for a window, or a small window, round as the mouth of a jar, often in houses of the poor. Cf. the Tz'ŭ yüan.

I saw this project last summer and just didn't have time to make it. A friend of mine goes through an unholy amount of soda in 2 liter bottles, so lots of material to work with. We are anticipating a hot summer here in Salt Lake, so I think I will give it a try.

Sweet Tatorman's picture

While my formal training as an engineer is in Electrical Engineering I believe I know enough about thermodynamics to call this out as bogus.

My mother used a similar principle when I was a kid. The window in the living room was open maybe 3"-4" (with a 13" cake pan full of ice on the window sill) and the big fan in the kitchen window pulled air through the house. Transoms at opposite ends of the house can also pick up hot air and move it outside.

Some electricity required, of course.