Save on AC with free "Personal Air-conditioning"

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Hi folks,

I found myself using a little trick today I've known about for some time. I am anxious to avoid using the A/C at home, and have been putting off fixing it in Marvin, 'coz I figure I really can't afford it. However, real hot days with high humidex values are a real drag...

... Until you install yourself with a personal cooling unit. Items required, one towel or absorbent cloth, at least 20 inches long, water. Method, roll it up, wet it, wring it out so it doesn't drip and hang it round your neck.

This works firstly on the evaporation principle, the latent heat of vaporisation of water pulls heat from your skin, but the wrinkle is, by hanging it round your neck it is particularly efficient at cooling you off, because there are some huge arteries in the neck that provide blood to the brain. Thus you are providing cooling at a spot where there is a large flow of blood right beneath the surface of the skin, allowing maximum heat transfer to the wet cloth and making for efficient cooling.

This is an ancient technique, used and known by laborers, sailors, farmers the world over, but appears to have been mostly forgotten in recent times.

It doesn't offer much in the way of "instant" gratification, feels good for about a minute until the water warms up a bit, but then feels a bit sticky, so you might be tempted to give up then, but if you just leave it there a half hour or so, you'll find yourself feeling a lot more comfortable as the gallons of blood passing under it are slowly cooled.

When you're working hard, it's somewhat self replenishing, from your own sweat, but even without sweating much, you don't really need to rewet it more often than every couple of hours. Longer if you have more tolerance for it being a bit drippy still when you put it on.

I've found this trick invaluable when the weather has gotten so hot, I feel like I'm about to keel from heatstroke just sitting around, but using this, I can actually get stuff done and outlast those folks that seem to cope with humid heat a lot better than I can.

So if you're determined not to turn the A/C on in the house or car, give this a shot, you'll be surprised how well it works.

Road Warrior

[civic_matic_00]

reminds me of this product:

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/...ing_system.php

After the desktop air conditioner is another contraption to help you keep the cool during the nasty summers. This personal neck cooling system in the form of a collar that hangs around your neck. Pour a few ounces of water, switch it on an its tiny, quiet motor will fan cool vapors onto your neck giving the blissful relief from the heat up to 4 hrs. The kit comes with a 2oz water bottle for quick refilling. The device weighs only 250 grams and runs on one AA battery so carrying this mini neck cooler won?t be an issue.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

If you wanna get space age about it you can make these too...
http://www.watersorb.com/polymer_cool_neck_bands.htm

Can probably use the granules out of disposable diapers for those.... unused disposable diapers of course...

[1cheap1]

You could always wrap bits of dry ice in the wet towel and increase the relief time. Just don't get it on your skin.

[trollbait]

Originally Posted by RoadWarrior

If you wanna get space age about it you can make these too...
http://www.watersorb.com/polymer_cool_neck_bands.htm

Can probably use the granules out of disposable diapers for those.... unused disposable diapers of course...

I have a similiar product in head band form around somewhere, now that you mention it.

Instead of cutting up diapers, you could get the potting soil addative used to extend watering times.

[Sporkman]

This isn't exactly a solution, but it can help, plus have other benefits: Eat less. When I eat less than usual, I've found my body temperature stays a bit cooler, & I can tolerate heat a bit better.

The downside: not easy to do.

[dkjones96]

Around here most homes just have central evaporative coolers. The only cost to run is water, a water pump, and a blower fan. Cools fairly well on MOST days. Humid days they are pretty worthless but our summers tend to hang around 10-20% humidity anyways.

Shouldn't be hard to build an evap system for a car except that it'd take over where the evaporator is under the dash and you couldn't run recirc and have cool air. Would make it dangerous on the rainy days where the glass fogs up without the use of the AC.

[rgathright]

Here are some potential models for your product!

[theholycow]

[GasSavers_JoeBob]

I remember doing something like this many years ago driving back to LA from my brother's wedding in Vegas.

The A/C in my Chevy LUV had broken, and it was mid-summer. IIRC, I had a small ice chest with some bottled water/soda. I took an old t-shirt, dipped it in the ice water, wrapped it around my head and left it until it dried. Repeated the process. Upside was I stayed fairly comfortable. Downside was that water dripped on my clothes and the interior of the truck. Of course, the truck was an old beater by this time, and I had changed out of my Sunday-Go-To-Meetin' clothes, so I wasn't worried about a little drippage...