http://www.househacker.com/ househacker/tags/air
Here's the basic setup. The garbage can is filled with ice water, which is then fed by gravity (a siphon) through the copper tubing coiled along the back of the fan. The hot air passing through the tubing warms the cold water, cooling the air. Waste warm water is then pumped outside. The system will cool an average room to a comfortable level in approximately 15-20 minutes. Depending on flow rate, a full bucket of water will last approximately 1-3 hours. I use a single bucket before bed on hot nights, which lets me get to sleep. Once the water runs out, the house has cooled off enough that the fan alone provides sufficient cooling.

Recently, someone has posted instructions for making improvements to the homemade air conditioner, which involves an aquarium pump to recycle the water, which in the first generation model, was routed outside the house.

Via LifeHacker]]> http://www.househacker.com/permanent/Sub-Thirty-Dollar-Homemade-Air-Conditioner Doityourself.com has many useful step by step articles for home renovations and repairs, including this one on waterproofing your basement which may be useful to anyone with a leaky basement and looking to save some money by attempting to do the repairs themselves. The site also has a large, active forum with over 40,000 members.]]> http://www.househacker.com/permanent/Basement-Waterproofing-Howto how to use a hammer) to intermediate (repairing cracked tile, repairing a defective light switch) to more advanced topics (basement foundation repair). They've also got a nice list of reference materials on topics ranging from the various nail and screw sizes to weights and measures and the metric system.

*Regarding PDFs: it's been said before, but Foxit Reader is a really fast and lightweight alternative to Acrobat Reader that deserves some attention. Give it a shot. ]]> http://www.househacker.com/permanent/Nice-List-of-General-Home-Repair-Howtos different way to furnish your bar, take a look at some of the interesting items over at DrinkStuff.com. It's hard to tell if these tube chairs would be really comfortable or not, but they sure look cool. The site is British, but they do claim to ship to many countries around the world.

For those of you looking to class things up a bit, remember, you can't go wrong with a giant stiletto chair, which is some sort of cardinal rule of interior decorating, it turns out.]]> http://www.househacker.com/permanent/Unique-Tube-Chairs-for-the-Bar
From the Depot's useful Know-How page.]]> http://www.househacker.com/permanent/Big-Home-Depot-Plumbing-HowTo-List sturdy co-polymer'. Sturdy is definitely the word you want to hear when sitting on something like this.

via Treehugger
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