Efficient “ice battery” provides 24/7 cooling for your home under Green Products, Green Technology, News The eco-friendly and cost-effective “ice battery” method of residential indoor climate control has been around for more than a decade, but one company still believes it is the answer to inefficient air conditioning units. California-based Ice Energy is the company that makes Ice Bears for both residential and commercial installations. The cooling units promise to save home and building owners a ton of money, while providing reliable cool air with a smaller environmental impact than traditional air conditioning. The system is based on a simple concept—ice is cold and can make air cold, too—but the sophisticated system is both smart and flexible to respond to the demands of a modern world. The company has lofty claims for its ice-based cooling units, saying the Ice Bear system “reduces peak cooling electricity by 95 percent for up to 6 hours a day” resulting in energy savings up to 40 percent overall.

The efficient unit essentially makes ice, a low energy task, and then uses it to cool your home’s air. Ice Bear can reportedly get four hours of cool air from its ice with the compressor shut off, which means it uses a lot less energy than a traditional air conditioner. Related: BeCool HVAC system generates energy while keeping buildings cool The Ice Bear, which is installed outside just like traditional central air conditioning units, can integrate with a home’s duct system or use a ductless mini-split system for homes lacking ductwork. It’s a smart system, too, designed with remote monitoring and control capabilities, as well as a host of reporting features that allow homeowners to see graphical representations of their energy usage. Images via Ice Energy My mother has asthma and tells me she needs the AC on almost year round. The AC unit is outside the condo we own, and it connects to the coils in the heater/ventilation system. We are experiencing poor cooling, (not enough cold air circulating - temp is not low enough) and ice where the coils are:

What should I do to fix this situation now, and in the long term? Since she is home alone often I need to understand what causes this so I can perform proactive maintenance, rather than responding to emergencies and giving her unnecessary distress and anxiety.my window ac unit sounds like it has water in it I'll let someone else take a stab at helping you fix your immediate problems, but I'll take a crack at the deeper issue. air conditioning unit for home useFrom your profile, I see that you live in New York. air handling unit performanceAssuming your mother does as well, your climate is wet, but only very hot for a few months out of the year. Running a central A/C unit year-round simply to dry the air out is a gross misuse of the equipment, and is probably making the house freezing cold for no reason, at high cost, and putting unnecessary wear-and-tear on the poor thing.

If your mother needs dry air to alleviate her asthma, have you considered using a dehumidifier to dry the air? It'll be a lot more inexpensive and cost-effective than running the A/C all the time. That must be costing a fortune.Browse other questions tagged hvac air-conditioning ice or ask your own question.There are few sentences in the English language less believable than “I’m going to build my own air conditioner.” The amount of daring and hubris required to even utter such a phrase is rare enough to be found only in the very smart, or the very stupid. But it’s hot, dammit, and desperate times are calling for desperate measures. The rent is too damn high, and the weather is too damn hot — surely there must be a solution to this. It’s only August, and the season isn’t over yet. And so, now in the summer of our discontent, the time has come to put ingenuity to the test, to throw both caution and reason into the wind and to laugh loudly in the face of ConEd. If global warming is a scientific problem, one has no choice but to propose a scientific solution: the DIY air conditioner.

Several models are floating around the internet. But do they work? IS THIS A THING PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO? Research — also known as Internet rumors — suggests that it is possible to build your own air conditioner for about $30-40. The idea originated when an unnamed university forbid students from having air conditioners in their dorm rooms, and a group of enterprising young people took it upon themselves to defy this rule and build one themselves. This story has been floating around Lifehacker since 2005, and has since been revamped twice by increasingly enterprising and decreasingly sweaty young college students. Unsurprisingly, the definition of “air conditioner” in these circumstances is a bit loose, expanded vaguely to “something that blows cold air.” Their model was built off the idea of a “swamp cooler,” which relies on the evaporation of water rather than vapor compression to cool the air that it circulates, or at least that’s what Wikipedia says. Since the initial attempt (which was apparently successful), there have been a number of elaborations and variations on the process, ranging from a wet shamwow behind a box fan to an electrified ice chest to a double-bucket gravity contraption that only god and nerds know how to assemble.

The options are endless, and a little bit daunting for someone who doesn’t even own a screwdriver. OK, HOW DO YOU BUILD THE DAMN THING? As previously mentioned, some designs for the A/C are more complex, requiring pumps and copper wire. Others relied on gravity to get the job done. This one requires something called a Seachoice bilge blower, which sounds difficult to acquire and maybe even a little gross. The chosen candidate for this experiment is the redneck air conditioner, brought to us by the reliable folks filming themselves doing reasonable things on YouTube. The idea is that the fan will blow air into the cooler, and the ice will cool the air before funneling it out through the pipe elbow. And there you will have it: air conditioner. •   1 Styrofoam cooler ($6) •   1 Pipe elbow ($3) The Home Depot ran out of fans, which is both stupid and funny as well as scary and possibly apocalyptic. Maybe you are somebody who already has a fan. Maybe your fan fortress is the reason that Home Depot no longer has any.

If that’s the case, good on you – you’re saving money on this part of the project. As far as everything else is concerned, the Styrofoam cooler was acquired from a Rite Aid, and the rest of the materials came from bodega-style hardware stores. Step 2: Cut two holes in the Styrofoam container, one on the side for the pipe elbow, and another on the top for the fan. Place fan and pipe in respective openings. Secure the openings with duct tape. Red duct tape earns extra urgency points. Step 3: Fill the container with ice, and maybe beer if you feel so inclined. Step 4: Replace the lid of the container and turn the fan on. Step 5: Grab a beer, leave the room, and let the cooler do its thang. Okay, so, show of hands: who’s surprised this didn’t work? After half an hour of waiting for the magic to happen, it soon became apparent that probably only magic — not science —  could coax cold air out of this contraption. It might be a bit of an exaggeration to say that this DIY A/C unit actually made the room hotter, but between closing the window and the door and funneling the fan’s full windpower through a tiny tube, it’s entirely possible that it actually did.