Weather Extra - Build Your Own Air Conditioner

In a new segment featuring the weather Hutch and Ryan will explain all the answers to your weather questions This week on KX weather Extra Ryan and Hutch show you how to build your own air conditioner Hutch First we need a heat exchanger Hutch waddya think Ryan I think this will work I think ths will work real well Hutch Let s get it Ryan Think so Hutch Yes sir Ryan Okie Dokie Ryan And now we re off to the hardware store Hutch Who s driving Ryan Not me Ryan We need some copper and some rubber tubing Hutch Copper tubing Ryan Ice maker that ll be perfect Hutch If you want it to go over the outside it has to be 3 8 I-D Ryan That ll Work Hutch The next part we need is a pump to move the cold water and a garden pump will do great Hutch That might even be more than we need Ryan What about 200 gallons per hour Hutch Yup let s go with that because if you pump it too fast the heat won t exchange well Hutch Did you say this was on sale Menard s Employee It s on sale Ryan Thank you gentlemen Hutch Ryan now all we need is some ice let s go Ryan Ice It s summertime where are we gong to find ice Hutch Well Ryan now that we have all the components that we need let s talk about how this air conditioner - on a dime is going to work Ryan Well Hutch first of all we ve got our little condenser here and so that is going to take the air we re passing through that and it s gong to cool down using the cold water we are going to pump through that But we have to get the water from the cooler to the condenser Hutch ok and we can do that we just picked up a quick little pump here submersible kind of like you have in your fish tank and we are going to set that down into the water and we are going to connect it to some copper tubing And the copper tubing as our water is passing through this copper tubing is gong to cool down by the ice water that is in the cooler very simple just a couple of hose clamps Ryan Just take your copper tubing and fan it out a little bit get it so that you get some good water and ice around so that you get that heat exchanged Hutch Alright so our pump is taking water from the bottom of our cooler and through the heat exchanger that is attatched to the box fan now we just have to make the water as cold as we can so that hopefully our air conditioner blows cool air and not air at room temperature Ryan Right now the ambient temperature is 77 degrees Hutch That s what I m talking about cheap air conditioning Ryan 68 baby 68 Hutch 77 to 68 Ryan the temperature went down 10 degrees Hutch Well we got an air conditioner and we put it together now it s time to sweep up the garage dontcha think Ryan I think so I think we can top off and tell everyone how much it actually cost us to make this air conditioner Hutch For the heat exchanger we estimated about 25 Ryan A garden pump can cost anywhere between 15 to 35 depending on how much water you want to move per hour Hutch Copper and Rubber tubing are fairly inexpensive you might even have some of it around your house Ryan And if you don t have a box fan stashed somewhere you can pick one up at any big store for about 10 Hutch So for the total cost of this project about what Ryan Ryan I think it was about 65 dollars wasn t it Hutch 65 for air conditioning That s one way to beat the heat If you have an idea or a question for the next Weather Extra segment send an e-mail to weather12 kxnet com and log on to the weather page at KXnet com where you can find blogs from Hutch and Ryan pictures and videos from each week s segments