- 2 days ago
Walk into a chicken coop on a hot, still afternoon and the first thing that hits you is the air — thick, stinging, that ammonia smell rising out of the bedding with no breeze to carry it off. The same heavy, stale air settles into a closed-up bedroom, a sickroom, a back room that never gets a cross breeze. Hot, and not good to breathe.
In this video I show you something that costs about seven dollars, takes fifteen minutes to put together, runs on nothing but water and a little moving air, and does two things at once: it cools the air coming into a space by a few degrees, and it cleans that air at the same time — pulling the stink, the damp, and the ammonia right out of it. It is the same material they put inside the air machines they sell for three and four hundred dollars, sitting in a tray for the price of a sandwich.
It is activated charcoal — not the briquettes you cook with, and I am very clear about that. I walk you through exactly what to buy, how to build it for a coop, a barn, or a stuffy room, where to place it so it actually works, and how to freshen it in the sun so one bag lasts the whole season.
I am honest about what it does and what it does not: the air-cleaning wo
In this video I show you something that costs about seven dollars, takes fifteen minutes to put together, runs on nothing but water and a little moving air, and does two things at once: it cools the air coming into a space by a few degrees, and it cleans that air at the same time — pulling the stink, the damp, and the ammonia right out of it. It is the same material they put inside the air machines they sell for three and four hundred dollars, sitting in a tray for the price of a sandwich.
It is activated charcoal — not the briquettes you cook with, and I am very clear about that. I walk you through exactly what to buy, how to build it for a coop, a barn, or a stuffy room, where to place it so it actually works, and how to freshen it in the sun so one bag lasts the whole season.
I am honest about what it does and what it does not: the air-cleaning wo
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Walk into a chicken coop on a hot, still afternoon, and the first thing that hits you is not the
00:05heat.
00:06It is the air. Thick, sharp, stinging in your nose, that ammonia smell that rises up out of the bedding
00:14when the sun beats down and there is no breeze to carry it off.
00:18The birds are panting, holding their wings out from their bodies, standing still because moving makes it worse.
00:26That same heavy, stale, stinging air settles into a closed-up bedroom in summer,
00:33into a sick room, into a back room that never gets a cross breeze.
00:37Hot and stale and not good to breathe.
00:42My name is Elias Yoda. I am Amish.
00:45I farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and I want to show you something today that costs about $7,
00:52takes 15 minutes to put together, runs on nothing but water and a little moving air, and does two things
00:59at once.
01:00It cools the air coming into a space by a few degrees, and, this is the part most folks do
01:06not know,
01:07it cleans that air at the same time.
01:10It pulls the stink, the damp, the ammonia right out of it.
01:15It is the same material they put inside the expensive air machines they sell for $300 and $400,
01:22doing the same job, sitting in a tray, for the price of a sandwich.
01:27It is charcoal.
01:29Not the kind you cook with.
01:31I will be very clear about that in a minute, because it matters.
01:35A particular kind of charcoal, damp, with air moving across it.
01:40Today, I am going to show you exactly what it is, why it works, how to build it in 15
01:46minutes for any space.
01:48A coop, a barn, a stuffy bedroom.
01:51And I am going to be honest with you about what it will do, and what it will not,
01:55because there is a great deal of foolishness told about this,
01:59and I would rather you trust me than be impressed by me.
02:03There is one real safety point you need to hear, too, and I will not skip it.
02:08Stay with me.
02:10Let me start with the two things going on here, because it is really two tricks in one,
02:15and understanding them is the whole game.
02:18The first trick is cooling, and it is the oldest cooling there is.
02:23It is evaporation.
02:25You already know it in your own body.
02:27When you sweat and a breeze moves across your skin, you feel cool,
02:32because as that water evaporates, it carries heat away with it.
02:36Water cannot turn from wet into vapor without taking heat along when it goes.
02:42That is just the nature of it.
02:45So, any time you move air across a wet surface, the air comes out the other side a little cooler
02:51than it went in, because it left some of its heat behind in the water it dried off.
02:56That is why a wet sheet hung in a doorway cools the room behind it.
03:01That is why the old folks set a damp cloth over the buttercrock.
03:06Move air across wet, get cool.
03:09Simple, and it has been true since the beginning.
03:12Now, the second trick, and this is what makes charcoal special.
03:17Charcoal, the right kind, is the most porous thing you will ever hold in your hand.
03:22A single, small handful of it, if you could unfold all the little tunnels and pores inside
03:28it and lay them out flat, would cover an area you would not believe, bigger than this whole
03:34room, out of a piece you can hold in your palm.
03:37It is riddled through and through with tiny passages, like the most complicated sponge
03:42ever made.
03:44Two things come from all that surface.
03:47One, it holds a tremendous amount of water for its size, and it gives that water up slowly
03:52as air moves through it.
03:54So, it is a wonderful wet surface for that evaporation cooling I just told you about.
04:00And two, here is the part the expensive air machines are built around.
04:04All those little passages grab hold of the bad things floating in the air.
04:09The smell.
04:10The ammonia.
04:12The damp, sour, stale compounds.
04:15The air moving through the charcoal does not just come out cooler.
04:19It comes out cleaner, because the charcoal catches and holds the foulness as the air passes
04:25through.
04:26They have a word for it.
04:28Adsorption.
04:28The stuff sticking to all those surfaces.
04:31But you do not need the word.
04:33You need to know it pulls the stink out of the air and holds on to it.
04:38That is exactly why they put this same charcoal in water filters and in the air machines folks
04:44pay hundreds of dollars for.
04:46You are getting both jobs, cooling and cleaning, out of one $7 tray.
04:52Now I have to stop and be very plain about which charcoal, because if you get this wrong, you
04:58will waste your money and it will not work at all.
05:01You want what they call activated charcoal.
05:04It is sold as little loose black granules, and you will find it cheapest in the pet section,
05:09sold for fish tank and aquarium filters.
05:12A bag of it runs about $5 to $8.
05:15You can also buy it as horticultural charcoal for gardening, or the kind sold for air filters.
05:21Any of those is the right thing.
05:23Activated charcoal.
05:25That is the word to look for.
05:26What you must not use is the charcoal briquettes you cook with on a grill.
05:31That is a completely different material.
05:33It is pressed together with binders.
05:36It is not riddled with all those little passages, and it will not cool or clean the air the way
05:41the activated kind does.
05:43Do not grab a bag of barbecue briquettes and expect this to work, because it will not.
05:49Activated charcoal.
05:50The loose black granules.
05:52That is the one.
05:54Here is how you build the basic one, and it truly is 15 minutes.
05:58You need a shallow tray or pan.
06:00A baking pan, a plastic storage tray, a wooden box with a bit of plastic sheeting laid in
06:06it, anything that holds a layer of the granules and lets air move across the top of them.
06:12Spread your activated charcoal in the tray in a layer, an inch or two deep.
06:17You do not need it deep.
06:18You need it spread out so air passes over plenty of surface.
06:22Then you wet it.
06:23Pour clean water over the charcoal until it is good and soaked all the way through,
06:28and let it sit a few minutes to drink it in.
06:31Then tip off any extra water that pools in the bottom.
06:34You want it wet like a wrung out sponge, damp clear through, but not sitting in a puddle.
06:40Puddled water does not move into the air.
06:42Damp charcoal with air across it does.
06:45Then you give it moving air.
06:47The very best spot, and this is the part most folks get wrong, so listen close,
06:52is right at the opening where outside air comes into the space.
06:56The window where the breeze comes in.
06:58The doorway.
06:59The vent.
06:59You set the tray right there so that every bit of air entering the room or the coop
07:04has to pass across that damp charcoal before it reaches you or your animals.
07:09A tray sitting in the middle of the room on a table does almost nothing.
07:13The cool, damp air just rises and mixes and you never feel it.
07:17Set it at the intake, in the path of the breeze, and now every breath of air coming in is
07:23cooled
07:23and cleaned on its way through.
07:25That is the difference between a curiosity and a system.
07:29If you have a little breeze from a window, that will do.
07:32If you want it stronger, a small battery fan, and here is where a man with a bit of solar
07:37like I showed you can run a small fan off the sun.
07:41Aim to pull air across the tray makes it work harder, but it is not required.
07:46A good cross breeze through the window does the job on its own.
07:50No power at all.
07:51That is the whole build.
07:52A tray, a bag of charcoal, some water, set at the window.
07:57Seven dollars, fifteen minutes.
07:59Now here is the one real safety point, and I will not skip it because it matters.
08:04Damp charcoal in a wide open breezy space, a coop with its vents, a room with the window
08:10open and air moving through, is perfectly safe.
08:13That is how you are meant to use it, and that is how all the good comes.
08:17But you must not seal a big bed of damp charcoal up in a small closed room with no air
08:23movement
08:23and then sit in there with the door shut.
08:26Wet charcoal, in a sealed up space, can slowly pull the good air, the oxygen, down out of
08:32a stuffy closed room because of how it works.
08:35So the rule is simple, and it is the same rule that makes the whole thing work anyway.
08:40This is for spaces with air moving through them.
08:43Open window, open vent, cross breeze, a coop that breathes.
08:48Never a sealed, shut up little room.
08:51Keep the air moving, which you want for the cooling regardless, and you are safe and you
08:56are doing it right.
08:57That honesty is worth more to me than any clever trick, so I say it plainly.
09:04Now let me tell you where this really shines, because it is not your main living room on
09:09the hottest day.
09:10I will be honest about that in a minute.
09:13Where this earns its keep is the coop, the barn, the hutch, the stuffy back room.
09:19A chicken coop in high summer is a hard place.
09:23Birds do not sweat the way we do.
09:26They cannot shed heat well, and heat troubles them badly.
09:30They start to suffer when it gets up into the high 80s in there, and it can turn deadly
09:36when it climbs past 100.
09:38And on top of the heat, you have that ammonia building up out of the litter, stinging in the
09:43air, hard on their lungs and their eyes.
09:46It is a real welfare matter, not just comfort.
09:50Now picture a frame of damp charcoal set right in the vent opening of that coop where the
09:57air comes in.
09:58Build a shallow box from scrap wood, open on two sides, line it with screen or hardware
10:04cloth to hold the granules, fill it with activated charcoal a few inches deep, and set it in the
10:11gap where the breeze enters.
10:13Every bit of air that comes into that coop now passes through the damp charcoal first.
10:20It comes in a few degrees cooler from the evaporation, which matters a great deal to a panting bird, and
10:27it
10:27comes in with the ammonia and the stink pulled out of it, because the charcoal grabs those compounds
10:33and holds them.
10:34The air your birds breathe is cooler and cleaner both.
10:39For a coop in a heat wave, that is not a small thing.
10:43That is the difference between birds that suffer and birds that come through.
10:49Same idea for a rabbit hutch, a dog's kennel, a stuffy corner of the barn where the animals
10:55shelter.
10:56Same idea for a sick room in the house, where you want the air gentle and clean and a touch
11:02cooler.
11:03Set the charcoal at the intake, keep it damp, keep the air moving.
11:09Cool and clean, both at once.
11:12Now, I have to be honest with you about the cooling, because this is exactly where I see
11:17folks oversell it, and I will not.
11:20The cleaning, the pulling of smell and ammonia and damp out of the air, that works no matter
11:26what, wet climate or dry, and it works well.
11:31That is the strong, reliable part.
11:33But the cooling part has a partner it depends on, and that partner is dry air.
11:39Here is why.
11:42Evaporation only cools when the air has room to take on more moisture.
11:47In a dry climate, out west, in the high plains, in a dry air heat, the air is thirsty.
11:54It pulls water off that charcoal fast and hard, and you get a real, satisfying drop, several
12:01degrees, enough to feel plainly.
12:04But here in the damp east, and worse down along the gulf and the humid south,
12:09the air is already half full of water on a muggy day, so it cannot take much more off
12:15the charcoal, and the cooling is gentler, maybe a couple of degrees, not a dramatic plunge.
12:21So let me set your expectations honest.
12:25In dry country, this cools noticeably.
12:28In humid country, the cooling is modest, a couple of degrees, but the cleaning of the
12:35air works just the same everywhere.
12:38I am not going to tell you a $7 tray of charcoal will cool your whole house like a machine
12:44in
12:44a Mississippi August, because it will not, and anybody who tells you so is selling you
12:50something.
12:51What it will do, everywhere, is clean the air and take the edge off the heat at the spot
12:57where the air comes in.
12:59Know what it is for, and it will serve you.
13:02Honest is better than impressive.
13:05And one more honest word, the upkeep, because it is part of the truth of the thing.
13:11The charcoal dries out.
13:13It works by being damp, so you re-wet it each morning, 30 seconds with a cup of water, or
13:19it is just a dry tray doing nothing.
13:22And after a month or two of catching smells, the charcoal fills up and slows down.
13:28But you do not throw it out.
13:30You spread it on a tray and set it in the full sun for a good day, and the sun
13:35and heat
13:36drive the caught compounds back out of it and freshen it up, ready to work again.
13:41One $7 bag, re-wet daily, and sunned now and then, lasts you the whole season.
13:48Now I want to take a moment, because this is the part that matters, and it is bigger than
13:53a tray of charcoal.
13:54Think about what you are sold to cool and clean your air.
13:58The air conditioner runs all summer, every summer, and you pay for every hour of it on
14:04the electric bill.
14:06The air cleaning machine sits in the corner, $300 or $400, and it wants a new filter every
14:12few months that you buy and buy again.
14:15Each one of those is a fine machine.
14:17I will not say they are not.
14:19But each one is also a thing somebody sells you once and then sells you again every month
14:25or every season, the power to run it, the filters to feed it, the repair when it quits in the
14:32worst week of the heat.
14:33And here is the quiet truth.
14:35The thing inside that expensive air machine that actually catches the smell and the bad
14:40air?
14:41It is this same activated charcoal.
14:44The very same material.
14:46They put it in a plastic housing, give it a brand name, and sell you a fresh one four
14:52times a year.
14:53You can buy the same charcoal loose by the bag for a few dollars and set it in a tray
14:59at
14:59your window and freshen it in the sun for nothing.
15:03It is not a different secret.
15:05It is the same material with the expensive part, the housing, the brand, the recurring sale,
15:12stripped off.
15:12That is why you have not heard of this.
15:15Not because it does not work.
15:17It works.
15:18It is the same stuff doing the same job, but because there is no money in a bag of charcoal
15:24in a tray.
15:25Nobody can sell you a monthly filter for a tray you freshen in the sun.
15:30Nobody can put a brand on a window breeze.
15:33The knowledge is not hidden in a vault.
15:35It is just quiet because quiet does not sell.
15:40The expensive version shouts.
15:42The $7 version sits there and works, and only the people who never stopped using the simple
15:48things ever remember it is there.
15:51We use the simple things because we have to, and because the simple things do not fail you
15:57in the worst week and do not bill you every month.
16:00A man who can cool and clean the air for his family and his animals with a tray of charcoal
16:06and the breeze through the window is a man who needs to ask no one's permission and pay no
16:12one's bill.
16:14That is the whole of it.
16:15So here is what I want you to do going into this heat.
16:19Get yourself a bag of activated charcoal, the loose black granules from the pet aisle or the garden
16:26section, $5 to $8, not the barbecue briquettes.
16:30Spread it an inch or two deep in any shallow tray.
16:35Wet it down good, pour off the extra, and set it right in the window or the doorway where
16:40your breeze comes in, not in the middle of the room.
16:44Keep the air moving through it.
16:46Re-wet it each morning.
16:48If it is your animals you are worried about, build the little screen-faced box and set
16:53it in the coop vent or the hutch opening where the air comes in and give your birds and your
16:59rabbits cooler, cleaner air through the worst of it.
17:02And remember the one rule, air moving through always.
17:07Open window, open vent, cross breeze.
17:11Never sealed up tight in a shut room.
17:15Tell me in the comments below, what are you going to set yours up in?
17:19The bedroom?
17:20The coop?
17:20The barn?
17:21The camper?
17:23And if you are down in the humid south, tell me what kind of drop you get, because I have
17:28told you to expect it gentle there and I want to hear what you find.
17:32I read every single one of these and what you all report back from your own places is the
17:38reason I keep doing this.
17:40Next time, since I have mentioned the birds, I am going to show you the whole of how
17:44my family keeps a flock cool and healthy through a heat wave.
17:48The shade?
17:49The water?
17:50The dust?
17:51The way we set up the coop so the heat never builds in the first place.
17:55It is the natural next step after today.
17:58Until then, keep the air moving.
18:00Let the water and the charcoal do the work and remember.
18:05The people who built this country with their hands knew things we are only just starting
18:11to remember.
18:12.
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