Keeping Cool in the Hottest Summer on Record

So, I just read today that the U.S. broke almost 9,000 heat records in the month of July! Yeah, it was (is) frackin hot! If you live in a two story home, cooling the upstairs, where your bedroom is, can be a real challenge.

Close all the basement vents, restrict the first floor vents, close off unused rooms and you might have a comfortable sleep if you crank the A/C down to the lower seventies. And in doing all that, your wearing out your blower fan faster because of all the back-pressure it's having to deal with from all those closed/restricted vents.

So I got an idea, and it works really well. We're able to sleep nicely while its 90's at night outside, the thermostat set at 77 inside and the A/C not working overtime.

It's a custom Vent Fan I designed/built to fit over a floor vent in the room. You remove the floor vent cover, replace it with this, plug it in and let it run 24/7. When the A/C is going, it pulls more air into the room than normal. When the A/C is not going, it still pulls air from cooler rooms in the house, into your room.

Before we used this, with our thermostat in the living room on the first floor set at 77, it was 83-84 upstairs in our bedroom at night. Now our bedroom is at the same temperature as the living room because cooler air is being pulled into it from 'downstairs' all day long - even with the A/C is not running.

It uses about 12W of power, so at $0.12/kilowatt/hour, I figure it costs about $1 a month to run full time. That's a lot cheaper than setting you A/C down to 70 so upstairs get cool enough to sleep.

I won't go into details on how to build it because its pretty straightforward/simple. But if those who know me ask, I'll write a post with step-by-step instructions.

Here's the parts list:

• 2 12cm Whisper Quiet Computer Fans ~ $10/ea (I used Thermotake)
• 2 12cm fan grills ~ $1.50/ea (to keep fingers, toes, and dropped stuff out of the fan blades)
• AC to DC Transformer ~ $15 (make sure the DC voltage matches the fans and that it is double the milli-amps required by a fan)
• 8 bolts and nuts ~ $4
• 16 steel washers ~$1
• 32 3/4" rubber washers ~ $4
• 8 1/2" rubber washers - $1
• 2 Computer Fan connectors ~ $3 (optional)
• 4 sq ft of cheap fiberboard ~ $5 (probably don't even need that much)

The box measures 14"w x 7"d x 3"h and I just glued it all together with Elmer's Wood Glue.

I'm guess at these prices because most of this stuff I already had on hand from various computer projects, outdoor build projects and used electronic equipment. But I figure it may cost around $55 to build one if you have to go out an buy all the parts new.

I went as far as drilling 1/2" holes for the fan and grill mounts and inserting rubber washing in them to further isolate the vibrations of the fan from reverberating in the fiberboard box.

I used fan connectors instead of hard wiring them to the transformer so that if the fans burned out, I could easily replace them.

The whole thing is pretty quiet, moves a lot of air and really makes a difference in keeping our upstairs bedrooms cool. We have one in our bedroom and on in our son's.

Enjoy!