window defrosting methods?

[lunarhighway]

with temperatures dropping and a car that's parked outside all the time frosted or foged up windows are quite a problem for me.

one of the first tips people often give is to drive of slowely in stread of letting the car idle, but with zero visibility trough the front window that can be quite suicidal... the car's 20 years old and there's no airco. the vents that are supposed to defrost the window don't work very well, but that's largely due to the fact the air only gets warm when the engine does so untill than they just make a lot of noise.

i'm wondering if anyone has had similar problems and has a clever solution. i'm considdering building a directable nozle accross the vents useing some electrical tubeing... i've got two diameters of tube where one fits inside the other so that i could rotate them to cover the whole windshield. this would also allow for a smaller opening wich might give the air a bit more force. but it would still be cold air.

i've also thought of converting a hairdryer to generate warm air electricly but the 230V AC to 12V DC conversion might be difficult, it would be handy to have an electric heater for a while though and might be more efficient, because useing the engine just to heat air can't be very efficient.

any thoughts on this? how do new cars handle this?...airco i guess?

it's not nice to sit in a freezing car for 15 minutes when you could be halfway home in that time.

[GasSavers_BIBI]

The problem is that when you leave your car at night or for a long time, the temperature in your car is hot, so the air cold down during the night and created that unwanted reaction. What I usually do its to cold down the temperature by opening my front windows so that the hot air can be replaced by cold air. I remembered that last year it as work for me.

Can always give it a try, its free.

[Erdrick]

I have a nice method. Get a pan (or anything that will hold water) of hot/warm water and spread it over your windshield. Instant visibility. No warm up time or anything. Severe temperatures might make the water instantly freeze again though.. so I don't know if it will work for you. Not very familiar with the weather of Belgium. This method does work for me in Japan though, and I see temps within 5 degrees of freezing, on both ends.

[Mayhim]

I've used warm water on the windshield, as well. There's a danger of thermal shock and cracking, but if you don't go too hot it works ok. I'd be afraid of doing that in extremely cold weather.

If you have to sit there and let it get warmed up, well, that's what you have to do.

[lunarhighway]

thanks for the advice.... temparature here is usually around freezing too here during the winter... but even when the temperature is above freezing cold winds will still enable icing up and such... i'll try to leave the window open a bit to see what that does. would that also mean that i have less chance of the window fogging up if i'd drive up with the window open? since the first few km's i drive slow i'd rather be freezing on my way home than in the parking lot.

hot water seems a good idea, but a little inpractical after work...
thanks for the tips

[skewbe]

You can try something like rain-x anti-fog for the fog and a window scraper for the frost. My car is usually defrosting well enough on its own in freezing weather after a couple blocks though and I usually get away with just a couple squirts of winshield fluid.

Edit: I have not actually tried rain-x anti-fog yet, can't say first hand if it works. There are other options besides rain-x also.

[GasSavers_mattW]

Ok here is my idea. By a travel 12V electric blanket such as one of these and one of those shiny light reflectors for your windscreen that you can get for summer. Wrap the reflector in the electric blanket and put it on the inside of the windscreen in the normal way. You might be able to work out a better way to keep the blanket up there but i think its a pretty good solution!

[palemelanesian]

Throw a regular blanket or towel or something over the window when you park the night before. Take it off in the morning. The frost will be on the blanket and not the window!

I use a scraper when I do get frost. I take the time to scrape it completely clear and don't use any defrost the whole drive. If I'm lucky, I'll have a warm engine by the time I'm done driving, but in cold weather it's often not.

[GasSavers_BIBI]

Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian

Throw a regular blanket or towel or something over the window when you park the night before. Take it off in the morning. The frost will be on the blanket and not the window!

I use a scraper when I do get frost. I take the time to scrape it completely clear and don't use any defrost the whole drive. If I'm lucky, I'll have a warm engine by the time I'm done driving, but in cold weather it's often not.

Scraper is ok for frost outside the car, but not for the frost that is created IN the car. Scraper he a MUST HAVE if you live in part of the world that have winter. Its like winter tires.... must have... first real snow acculmulation yesterday, damn people dont know how to drive in snow...

[GasSavers_Bruce]

Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian

Throw a regular blanket or towel or something over the window when you park the night before.

Don't do this if it's windy or raining. You could wind up losing the towel or having to chip it off your windshield.