NASA Engineer Reveals Tricks to Defog Your Car Windows Fast
We all know what the difference a few minutes can make on our morning commute. A delay of five or ten minutes in the driveway can mean a delay of half an hour or more because of heavier traffic depending on how long your commute happens to be and what time you need to get where you're going.
One of the biggest frustrations in going anywhere in Louisiana is being able to see out of the car's windshield. Quite often Louisiana's locker room climate means a lot of fog and a lot of wet on our windows no matter what time of the year it is. However, that fog on the inside of the glass is usually exacerbated when the weather turns cooler, as it has done over the past several days.
Mark Roper is a former engineer for NASA and he has applied some scientific principles to the problem of foggy windshields and how to get the clear as soon as possible. You can see Mark's explanation in the video below.
Basically, Mark's scientific method is based on real scientific facts. The steps are really kind of simple and they have more to do with removing moisture from the air inside the car than they do with changing the air temperature of the car's cabin.
Mark says the first thing you need to do is turn the car's heater on full blast. The hot air is drier so it can hold more moisture. In other words, it will help to soak up the damp humid air that's fogging up against the cooler glass of the windshield.
Also, turn on your air conditioner. Pushing the button that turns on the car's air conditioning compressor, it's usually the button that has the snowflake on it, will help pull moisture from the air as well.
Turn off the air recirculation feature on your car's HVAC system. You actually want the system to bring in air from the outside. The reason? Cooler air from the outside is drier than the air inside the car. Again, this isn't a temperature issue, it's a humidity issue.
Finally, crack as many windows as you can. This will allow more of that drier outside cooler air into the cabin of the car. Even if you can only stand it for a few minutes, it will be worth the chill. This will wring out the moisture that's fogging up your windshield too.
Roper says these scientific facts will help you get underway faster on those mornings when your car's windshield is trying to slow you down. Just remember, don't drive anywhere until you can actually see. I know we've all done it but you really do need to be able to see out of the entire windshield and not just that little peephole you cleared out with an old Sonic napkin you found in the floorboard.
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