Homemade cooling: A DIY solution for surviving summer heat

Not everyone can afford to install an air conditioner at home, but alternative methods can significantly improve comfort even during extreme heat.

Air conditioning is already standard in many offices, but it is still absent in most residential buildings, especially older ones.

Interestingly, it doesn’t take much to improve your thermal comfort dramatically. If you have an ordinary fan, you already have the most essential element to create a homemade air conditioner. All you need is some cardboard, a bit of free time, and, for the more determined, polystyrene foam.

It’s important to remember that essential physics remains unchanged—the only way to cool down a room is to supply cold air or remove heat. Other methods only temporarily improve thermal comfort.

That’s why when we turn off the fan, the heat returns quickly - the feeling of coolness comes from the flowing air, while the actual temperature in the room does not change.

Our proposed method works differently, but it is still a temporary solution. It involves modifying the fan to work similarly to a fan coil unit. You’ll need some cardboard, preferably lined with polystyrene foam, ice, and a fan.

The fan should be encased in cardboard as tightly as possible. Lining the cardboard with polystyrene foam is advisable - it prevents the cardboard from getting soaked by melting ice and helps insulate the fantastic elements from the warm outside air.

The concept is simple: Place ice inside the cardboard and mount the fan in front of it. The tightly enclosed fan draws in the cool air inside our construction and directs it to a chosen location.

Of course, this solution won’t cool down the entire room, just the places where you direct the stream of cool air. Although it’s not a full-fledged substitute for air conditioning, it can bring us temporary relief during the hottest moments of the day.