Improvised Urban Survival Air Conditioning by TheRoadWarri0r

I came home from work this afternoon, walked in my door expecting my home to be sitting at my "come home setting" of 72 degrees F.  I was surprised to be hit with a blast of greenhouse heat.  I walked upstairs (even hotter on the second floor) and looked at my thermostat.  It told me that the house was sitting at 90 degrees F!  I walked outside to my heat pump/air conditioning unit and saw that it wasn't running.  The fans were circulating air but it was not cool.  I did some trouble shooting to no avail.

Bottom Floor Temperature (10 F hotter upstairs)

I immediately called the HVAC repair folks on the phone and they informed me that they couldn't get to me until the next morning.  I had to spend a night in my home with the temps pushing 90.  Unacceptable!  I refuse to spend my hard earned money on a hotel room or a window AC unit so I decided to suck it up and improvise...

First I had to gather supplies.

• Cheap cooler ($2.50)
• Cheap D-cell battery fan ($6.00)
• 100-mph tape (free)
• Used 1-gallon ziplock bag (5 cents)
• 16 lbs bag of ice ($2.50)

Total Cost of Supplies: $11.05

I had to cut the cooler to accept the shape of the fan without too much leaking air out the side.

After fitting the fan, I sealed the sides so that the fan could force air through the cooler.

Now I had to drill out the intake holes for the cooler so that the fan could pull the cool air from one side of the cooler and blow it out the other.

That was about all there was to it.  For about $11 and ten minutes of your time you can make a personal air conditioner to keep you cool if your home A/C goes out.  It's not going to freeze you out but it helps!  below is the video on how it all worked out.  See for yourself.