r/HVAC•
IAMA_Printer_AMA

Hear me out: Mobile, air conditioned yard canopy

Meme/Shitpost

I do supermarket refrigeration and I've spent a lot of time looking at that "MAX WP 60 PSI" printed on my hose while deicing cases. It gets me thinking. I go "hey, that's less than 134a suction pressure..." It's also a reasonable maximum for domestic water pressure, which I've been to some stores where the water pressure seems like it's been pushing that and my hose holds up to it just fine.

Imagine you have one of those square pop-up canopies for your yard. But, hanging inside it, are the evaporators and blowers of some gutted window AC units, blowing cool air down into the shaded area of the canopy. I can't think of a better way to thumb your nose at nature.

But how would it work, you ask? Well, for simplicity, the hanging unit ought to be all one piece that's lifted up into the canopy once it's assembled, so we can pipe them all together and only have one suction/liquid hookup to worry about. Could put a switch and a solenoid on each coil, so you could seat multiple people and they could turn the unit blowing on them off and on as they wish. Now here comes the master stroke of the genius plan...

Put a crankcase pressure regulator in the suction line in the evap unit and adjust to 60 psi max. Bonus points for an EPR, too, to keep vsat above freezing so it doesn't ice up. Outfit a 5-ton AC unit with a liquid line solenoid, a suction stop solenoid, and a shitty, cheap little like 2-3 cfm vacuum pump hard piped to the other side of the solenoids. Braze a 1/4" flare fitting on the liquid and 3/4" brass garden hose fittings on the condenser and the evap unit suction lines. Add a couple switches for the pump and solenoids, dual pressure control and a bypass switch for the compressor, charge with 134a, add a receiver if you can get one, and you're ready to beat the heat!

Just set up the canopy with the evap unit, absolutely wherever you'd like in your yard, and then use whatever length you need of 1/4" flare hose and garden hose to connect it to the condensing unit, plus an extension cord for power. Use the vac switch to suck all the air out, then open up the solenoids, and you're off to the races! Liquid shoots out to the evaps, they start cooling, pressure control kicks the compressor on, CPR at the evaps keeps the garden hose under its max pressure rating, EPR keeps the coils from freezing up. When you're done turn off the liquid line solenoid and use the compressor bypass switch to pump everything back down, close the suction stop and then you're ready to disassemble and pack everything away.

What part of this mad scientist contraption do you think would fall apart first? I'm not sure if the compressor or the garden hose would last longer. Maybe if the suction gas is too cold for the hose to handle you could have some sort of heater in the evap unit that keeps the suction gas warm enough, and then liquid injection available in the condensing unit so high return gas temp doesn't kill the compressor. The oil would probably also be awful for the hose so you'd want an oil separator in the condensing unit, too, but then, like... what's the next point of failure?

I think it's just stupid enough to work and I fully intend on building it someday.

Posted Sep 13, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

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