Question: A few summers ago, the air conditioner on my 1993 Dodge Caravan went out. The cost to fix it (from two different sources) is $1,700 to $2,000. The car is not worth that much, so I have not fixed it. Last week, while walking through a Home Depot I saw a portable, stand-alone air conditioner on sale for $595 (you can see where I'm going with this). The unit requires a 115-volt connection to operate it. Can I get an adapter at Radio Shack, buy the rolling air conditioner and plug it into my cigarette lighter? I know other appliances can be plugged into the lighter, but I'm not sure the car can accommodate the demands of an air conditioner. Ignoring the fact that I will look like a hillbilly, what do you think? JohnTom: Well, at least you'd be one cool hillbilly, John.Ray: It can be done, John. But there are a number of conditions. The first is: Forget about the cigarette lighter. That'll give you enough juice to power your cell phone or your glow-in-the-dark Parker Posey dashboard ornament.

But you'll melt it if you try to run a major appliance through it.Tom: You need a device called an "inverter," which is a box that converts DC power into AC power. You'd have to run special wires from the inverter to the car's battery., and he recommends finding a small, efficient, 5,000 BTU air conditioner. Fedders and Daewoo make them, and they cost about $100 at home centers.Tom: And even though those units use only 575 watts of continuous power, they do "surge" when they kick in, demanding nearly twice that much power. So Don recommends that you go with an inverter that provides 2,000 watts continuous/4,000 watts peak power. That'll run you about $250.Ray: I believe the V-6 Caravans came with either a 90- or 120-amp alternator, which should be sufficient. Anything less than 90 amps, though, and you'd have to spend a few hundred bucks to have a heavy-duty alternator installed. Otherwise, you'd be stopping for gas, an oil check and a new alternator every 200 miles.Tom: And then the final question is how to install the AC.

If it were me, I'd just pop it in the passenger window. You know, hold it at the top and roll up the window until the unit is good and tight. It'd provide a good laugh for other drivers on the road!Ray: No, you can't do that, for safety reasons. You'll have to find a way to install it permanently. The hot air and condensation need to escape, and fresh air needs to be drawn in. Plus, it needs to be secure. A crash could turn it into a 50-pound projectile.Tom: So, you might sign up for a course in "Working with Plywood and Lexan." mobile home hvac equipmentBut it can be done. average price of a ac unitAnd if you go ahead with it, send us pictures.cheap ac units in nycI'm going back to school, and the stuff I need/want to take won't all fit into my car.

My friends say I should rent a trailer. I'm concerned that my car will be ruined by the effort of towing a trailer across, first, the Sierra Nevada, then the Rockies. My car is a 1997 Honda Civic, with 155,000 miles on it. I live in the San Francisco Bay area, and I'm going to Indiana University in Bloomington. What do you suggest? DavidRay: Engines and transmissions have to work hard to get over mountains -- especially small engines. And when you add 1,000 pounds of weight for them to pull, not to mention the additional wind resistance of a big, pizza-box-fronted trailer, you're just asking for the engine or tranny to overheat or fail. And a compact Honda Civic was not built to tow trailers over multiple mountain ranges.Tom: So, my suggestion would be to throw some of your stuff overboard (i.e., get rid of it). If you can't bear to do that, you can always ship some of it to school. Send the stuff by UPS, and let them drag it over the mountains and cook their transmissions.Ray: Or, if you must take a ton of stuff with you, you can rent a truck and tow your car.

But I'd say, just take some clothes, your laptop and a coffee maker, and when you need other stuff, do what all college students do; bum it off your roommates. Lottery results for Powerball, Florida LottoLottery results for Powerball, Florida LottoDo your homework before painting or sealing cool deckPuerto Rico birth certificates: How to get a new oneLottery results for Powerball, Florida LottoLottery results for Powerball, Florida LottoYou can run your window air conditioner from an inverter. The most common way to use an inverter is when changing from alternating current, or AC, when going off the grid. By going off the grid, you will be using direct current, or DC electricity, from a sustainable energy source like solar, windmills or water. The inverter converts the DC current into AC current so that regular household appliances can be run from typical household sockets. The Electrical Basics An inverter is part of a 12-volt DC system. For practical purposes, it takes 11 amps of DC power to successfully run a 1-amp AC powered device.

If you have a 5-amp window air conditioner, you will need 55 amps of DC power to run the unit continuously. However, all electrical appliances have a starting surge that gets the motor running. This is generally five times the continuous electrical load, which means that, in this instance, you will need 275 amps of DC power to start the 5-amp air conditioning unit and then a continuous 55 amps to keep it running. The Air-Conditioning Unit The smallest window air conditioners that are designed for a single room, usually in the 5,000 BTU range, use about 4 to 5 amps of power when running. A larger whole house unit that puts out 12,000 BTU will use about 11 amps of power when running. The surge on an 11-amp unit will be about 360 DC amps while the surge on a 4-amp unit will be about 130 amps. In this case, using the smallest air conditioning unit possible will enable you to use a smaller and less expensive inverter. The Power Source In real terms, all the inverter does is to transfer a specified amount of power to operate any given AC electrical unit, including air conditioners.