Battery powered A/C units

mercynursie · Aug 4, 2009

I came across this in my search for a backup plan in case our a/c or power happen to go off. My mom is checking on my chinnie boys for me while we are gone overnight to move our daughter into college. She will check and make sure everyone has food/water/hay,walk our dogs at least twice,etc. But she is really worried about what to do if our power a/c should go out. We live in a single wide mobile home with no shade whatsoever. She knows I'll have ice packs/marble in freezer if needed, but I was just wondering if anyone had tried one of these O2-Cool® Portable Battery Powered Cool Box Personal Air Conditioner from www.safetycentral.com or one of the units that fits over an ice chest with a fan.My babies are in a fairly small about 10x10 room and window is covered with heat film and heat block curtain. I'm just wondering if this might be of use in emergency only. When I'm home, I pretty much keep things on 66-68 degrees cause I'm fluffy and I don't do heat well either!! Any input or suggestions are appreciated.

cintistatern2005 · Aug 4, 2009

I Think it would work ok for a short period of time but i have never used one. I noticed to use the air conditioner it needs ice. If your power goes out your not going to keep producing ice. Yea you can go to a store but ice is one of the first things to sell out quickly. Maybe someone else will know more about these things.

tunes · Aug 7, 2009

The thought of a battery powered a/c is interesting. I'm not sure it would cool a very big area, say the size of my chin barn? But for a single chin in a small room it might work.

I have to say though, seriously, that is just a scary site. A baby cradle/hazmat suit? Wow.

anue118 · Aug 7, 2009

I thought about getting the O2 unit as I live right next to a connivance store and could easily get ice, however I decided against it. I live in middle of a larger city, and I don't think I would feel comfortable running over to the store for ice if the power went out in the middle of the night.

Instead, I made my own AC unit using some copper tubing, plastic tubing, and a ten inch fan that runs on batteries. It's kind of a take on this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR9CA8lJGvs) except I don't use any electricity. Instead of using a fish pump and a tub of water, I just rigged it so that it would connect to my shower faucet. The cold water from my shower takes a small room's temp down enough to get me through a power outage without upsetting my girls. The fan distributes it around the room.

I'm not home now, but if you're interested I can take some pics when I'm back in town on Sunday.

You could also add more fans for a larger room, it'd just require more battery power (mine's supposed to run on batteries before 48 hours before it needs a change, but I haven't tested that theory yet).

tunes · Aug 7, 2009

I would like to see it Anue - if for nothing more than curiosity sake. I don't have a water source in my barn, so I doubt it would work for me there.

The video you linked too was interesting. I thought that was pretty easy to do, but it needs electric to power it, so I guess that won't help much in an outage.

menagerie · Aug 7, 2009

That is an interesting concept, I don't see how it works to cool things without cold water though.

After I watched the video, I clicked on another one and found a product that is battery powered and works with a cooler that looks interesting.

Essentia · Aug 7, 2009

It does use ice. It has a section in it where you put the ice. Without the ice it only works as a fan.

AZChins · Aug 7, 2009

Has anyone ever heard of the temperature alarm device that actually calls you when the temperature gets too high? You can program it to call your cell phone. I've toyed with the idea of getting one, but the problem is that I am always HERE with the chins...so it probably wouldn't be necessary. I'm going to find a link to that thing...