To my Scouting friends:

My friend Christina Clarke bought an AC for her tent since she has to go to BSA Summer Camp and camp every month with the boy scouts. I looked it up and it seems to consist of a large battery – like from a UPS, or small car battery, a horizontal fan and a cooler of ice. Block ice would likely work better but bagged ice worked for us.

I recently had to sleep out in a tent at Camp Kinship and Brian performed an experiment. Here are the methods and the results. We used a large shallow cooler – like 25 quart – full of bagged ice. We put the lunch tray on top of the cooler with the lid open – any mesh shelf, like a window screen or plastic craft grid would work. On the grid we placed a small battery opperated fan blowing up. On
the edge of the top of the cooler we set an 8-inch battery opperated fan facing forward. The two fans blew the air from the ice up and out of the cooler with the lid open. Brian used duct tape and cardboard to try to keep the air only coming out of the cooler where the fan was blowing – like an AC vent. I think it would still feel good without this.

We set this cooler in the “closet” area at the back of my 6 man tent and put the rain fly on the tent. It worked!! Within 30 minutes the tent felt significantly cooler than the air outside. There was at least a 15 to 25 degree difference. It even felt like chilled air coming out of the fridge.

What didn’t work is at 1230am a 35+mph wind blew up in the 80+ degree heat and added too much outside air to our tent for the AC contraption to continue to work. Also we need something more sturdy to support the fans as the duct tape got cold and let go of the fan, knocking both fans into the ice water. We saved the fans by pulling them out and just letting them blow all night next to the cooler of ice on the ground. The ice in the cooler didn’t continue to cool the tent without the fans though. Try this and make your own improvements and add your comments!