Keeping a bit cooler in the summer
 

I wanted to start a thread dedicated to different ideas on how to keep your car's cabin and yourself cooler throughout summer, without eating up the MPGs. I can't stand the heat (once 80*F comes around, I'm already getting miserable).

The bead seat covers are pretty notorious as a suggestion (rightfully so). But I'm sure there are other great suggestions out there!

So please post up all your suggestions to fight the heat and keep those fingers away from the fuel-robbing air conditioning button! (for those who still have that option.)

As for my own findings...

One of the things I did last summer: I bought a roll of white contact shelving liner and carefully applied it to the roof of my car. The color change seems to have kept some of the sun from cooking the top of my car as much. This includes the sunroof, which I never used anyways.

I have applied 1 layer of foil sandwiched bubble wrap insulation throughout the entire car. This should help keep some of the sun from transferring heat into the car, but I found that it keeps the heat in even more if you don't have airflow!

Keeping your windows cracked while parked helps, but I'm going one step further. I'm replacing my sunroof with acrylic and built a solar panel. This will connect to a solar charger and a pair of fans. The fans will be in place of my rear speakers and pull air (which will such fresh air either from the windows or through the ventilation system).

I tried doing a pump-powered mister system to emulate a swamp cooler effect in my car (dry climate area). Though misting decently, it just didn't do much. I think I needed a higher PSI pump and maybe to relocate the mister itself to give it more path to absorb into the air.

Another idea I had, but have no clue how to go about it, is if one were to build a tube frame seat and used a mesh cloth to keep it breathing well (see this office chair for example: http://www.sitcorrect.com/products/MMBM2_4641.JPG). This would probably reduce weight and give you even better cooling than the bead seat covers... though I have no clue how much work and cost this would be.

just tint your windows, my buddys car stays cool out in the sun all day

i personally crack the window and use a sun shade

+1 on the sunshade. Anything you can do to reflect solar energy rather than absorb it will help. I bought a silver car for just that reason, and it is noticeably cooler inside on a hot day than my old red car.

Recently, I have only been parking in two places, under the carport at home, and in front of my parents' house in the mountains, where it may only reach 60°, although if I do not use my mylar-faced bubble sun shade and crack my windows, I get quite the solar oven effect!

My windows are tinted, which I did not realize at first, so it must be a legal tint, unlike the one that I had installed on my silver Forester; I went with the tint level of the police cars and highway patrol.

It actually works better to have the shade on the outside...

I discussed putting white Plasti-Dip on my black Civic on here before.

I guess that I could just do the roof... :)

Rear window luvers. Not only do they look cool and improve aerodynamics they keep the sun out of the back of your hatchback car.

radiant barrier foil & white paint
 

The moon roof on my civic let the sun and heat in right on the top of my head, and there was no sliding shelf to close off the glass. I tried wearing hats, which only helped a little. Attaching a kitchen towel below the glass with binder clips helped quite a bit. Then I did the same with radiant barrier foil and the heat disappeared entirely. The car is now quite comfortable in the heat.

I stapled the same radiant barrier foil to the rafters of my house a couple of years ago. Last week the temperature got up to 104 degrees outside, and my house was a comfortable 76. If anyone has ideas for attaching the foil to the ceiling of my chevy celebrity, let me know.

I've also now painted the dark green civic to white.

.

Think cool thoughts... ;)

>

Good ideas, window tint, window screens, california car cover, windshield sun screens, parking in shaded areas, facing rear of car towards sun, leaving windows open or cracked, use of a 12 volt cigar plug fan like the bus drivers and truck drivers use who do not have ac.

Anyone remember the scene where they are doing summer school without air conditioning in "Stand and Deliver?"

You might know in Brazil swamp-coolers are popular among truckers, and are usually mounted in the roof of the vehicle. Nowadays there are some low-profile models which don't decrease the aerodynamics so badly. And, unlike a regular air-conditioneer, a swamp-cooler works better when there is a higher air flow thru the cab, no wonder many users get weathershields to keep the windows a little open while using the swamp-coolers.
workaround ideas to discuss among friends: Evaporative cooling: a low-budget yet energy-efficient way to improve thermal comfort in motor vehicles

workaround ideas to discuss among friends: Why to get a swamp-cooler in a truck?

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Anyway, since your car already has a hole in the roof, it might be even easier to adapt a swamp-cooler :D

I made a two-day trip though the middle of a Nevada desert summer. In a car with no AC, and a thin black plastic roof panel. The air was so hot that opening the window made it feel hotter inside the car than out. I had a dish-towel and a cooler full of melting ice in the car with me. Soak the towel in the ice water, then wrap it around my neck. I would need to refresh the towel every 10-15 minutes, but it only took a few seconds to do so.

That's not a trip I would like to make again, though. (Having the car break down a couple of times didn't help.)

-soD

If you have your own parking area you could connect a portable A/C to your car with a duct.
I have a 1 ton portable A/C that wont be needed to cool the house after we move and want to use it for something like that.
This is not a window unit.

In Asia it's common to have bamboo "mats" on beds/seats/etc. for hot weather. It actually helps a lot with sweating especially with humid air. Dunno where you'd find them here in the US but I'm sure you can find it somewhere.

I'd like to point to last year's discussion on this subject.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ona-26784.html

They're known by the Japanese as "tatami". Might not be so hard to find at any Chinatown, but I'm not so sure if they would fare so well in an automotive application.

When I use to work for a trunking company all the isuzu npr, nqr and such cab over truck had a roof top vent for extra cooling of the interior space.

The swamp-coolers are usually mounted at those roof vents when they're factory-fitted to the truck, but when there is no such vent it requires the roof to be cut, and easily some crossmembers fitted to support the weight of the swamp-cooler, altough it's still not heavier than some air-conditioneer setups. I have already seen an NPR fitted with a swamp-cooler too.

If you use the A/C during braking it saves brake wear and costs you no fuel. In city traffic it can be just about enough to keep you cool.

Why not? Pretty much all taxis in China have them. Beats sweating into cloth.

It depends on how they keep tied to the seat rests, otherwise they would slip so much that it would become an annoyance.

I have my own parking area. It is covered. That is really all that I want.

:)

An available alternative to the bamboo: the classic beaded seat cover.

Keeps you cool, looks... well maybe not cool anymore.

I got a beaded seat cover and it didnt do anything then leave a funny pattern on my thighs, butt and back.

An insight owner got one of those seat covers that has a fan in it to circulate air to help keep you cool. I use to have recaro ds seats in my tacoma that had a blower and heater option as it had gortex material in the seat design. Felt good with the ac on. :thumbup:

Somebody said to run the AC while breaking (city driving)
Doesn't the ac increase engine load...so its going to eat power thus fuel? Granted that it is going to burn less when you are not loading the engine...but still its hard on FE?

the reason they would use ac while coasting would be because your instant mpg is higher at that instance. pulse and gliding can be used with your ac. Basically run it til your comfortable than turn it off til your hot again. Either way your mpg's will still be impacted but not as much as if it was ran full time

In theory I think it would make more sense to run the a/c during heavy acceleration so as to get your alternator charging during peak bsfc. I could be wrong though.

If your engine is in DFCO, no fuel is being delivered, the vehicle's momentum then runs the A/C for a ZERO fuel deficit.

There are 4 (3 unique) spots to cool a person down quickly, the head, the arm pits, and the crotch. This is what did today in the 90 deg mpg run (and in the past); Froze a cooler full of bottled water, and I stuck one between my legs. Once relatively thawed, replace with a new one, and drink the old. Keeps you cool and hydrated.

Other ideas: shave your head, wear flip flops, and swimming trunks.

Factory 'smart' alternators disengage completely during acceleration and ramp up to max under braking. Think of BSFC as a nessesary evil, you don't actually want more load then nessecary. You want to put load on the engine when it's running at light load to get it closer to BSFC at those least efficient times.

Run your A/C at light loads, switch it off when accelerating, most 'smart' cars will switch off the A/C automatically at full load.

Other way around. There is an abundance of engine power, but not enough times to use it. Better to run accessories when it's lightly loaded. If you run the AC when the engine is running very slowly at low load, the engine might be in a poor BSFC area but the amount that you increase the BSFC is huge because you're putting load on the engine when it has very little load.

The exception would be if the engine speed is increased significantly to run the accessories, but that's what "pulse and glide" is for (as in, cycle the AC on and off, preferably on when braking).

Eco A/C
 

Here is my solution for increased cooling without running the A/C. When trying to hypermile it costs me 10 MPG to run the A/C.

Previous poster spoke of the spotted pattern on your back and legs when using a beaded seat cover. What this means is only the part of the beads that touch your clothes collect sweat. The other parts use evaporation to cool you and don't leave you wet. There are many beaded seat covers available on Amazon.

I also use a "Tornado" fan that concentrates a strong breeze on your chest and head. You can get one for about $25 at any Pilot Truck Stop or Amazon.

http://i855.photobucket.com/albums/a...1/P1010157.jpg

This is the only picture I could find showing my beaded seat cover and "tornado" fan. One negative with the fan is the noise when run on high speed.

Evaporation is basically what makes the swamp-coolers keep the air flow a little colder, so the beaded seat covers and a cheap fan seem like a reasonable setup to keep everything simple.

not sure of the legality so proceed at you own risk:
using a windscreen shade, one side black, other silver. place across dash/steering wheel, black side up, use elastic band to secure to rolled up side window. creates shade, esp when driving towards the sun.

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...be sure the silvered surface is as close as possible to the glass windshield as possible, because you want the reflected energy to go BACK thru the glass, NOT be reflected INTO the interior of the car.

Especially the driver!

I have a set of those shades and love them. They easily fold up out of the way and easily pop up and fill the window area. I use them when riding the james town ferry. :thumbup:

:thumbup: Gotta love the crotch bottle cooling trick.