The holidays have come and gone, but winter is only just getting started.
Although snow can be beautiful and fun to play with, the process of scraping frost off our cars and waiting for them to warm up in the morning is easily one of the more annoying aspects of winter.
And it’s not just the ice itself. Sometimes we can spend five minute just sitting in our car, waiting for the windshield to defog.
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Thankfully, this former NASA engineer has a science-based method for defogging his windshield faster, and he’s happy to share it.
Self-described “friend of science” Mark Rober explains his four-step technique in this five-minute YouTube video.
In the video, Rober breaks down how he developed this method, and why it works.
Before we begin, it’s important to understand the reason our windshield fogs up. This happens because the air inside the car is warmer than the air outside the car.
Warm air holds more moisture, but when it reaches max capacity, we get condensation. The fog on your windshield is the same as the condensation on your ice cold can of soda in the summer.
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The first thing you’ll want to do, once you start the engine, is turn your car’s heater on full blast.
Warm air can hold more moisture than cold air.
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Next, turn on your car’s air conditioning. This pulls moisture out of the air as it passes over the AC’s cold coils.
Third, turn off inside air circulation. This will allow your car to pull in air from outside. Once that cool air is heated up, it will be able to absorb the moisture in your car.
Image Credit: Mark Rober, YouTube
Finally, crack as many windows as possible, even for a few seconds, to allow the warm, humid air to exit the car, and the dry cool air to enter.
At the end of the video Rober also suggests placing a sock full of kitty litter on dashboard to help absorb moisture, or giving the windshield an anti-fog treatment with shaving cream!
Hopefully this method will help you save some time this winter.
Do you have any wintertime hacks for dealing with ice and snow? Let us know in the comments!
