How Are You Keeping Your Darkroom Cool

[Ian-Barber]

In this mini heat wave we are are experiencing, how are you managing to keep your darkroom cool enough to work in

 

[David M]

Ice cubes in the water before mixing – filtered ice. Or those plastic blocks filled with gel.
There's a kind of picnic cool box that connects to your car output. (Mains plug included.) It provides modest heating or cooling by electronic means. It's not a conventional refrigerator. I put my chemicals into it some time before I need them and monitor the temperature from time to time.
I begin processing with the temperature too low and hope that the drift-past theory works. A more diligent person would do proper tests. If we had more reliable heatwaves, I'd do it.
The photographer has to suffer, but he can walk out.

 

[Ian Grant]

Mine's down the garden in a stone/breeze black shed and well insulated walls, floor ceiling and door, as long as the door's not left open long it's staying cool, I've been leaving a small fan running at floor level and that helps a lot.

I've been working at 26ºC this last week or so, but that's what I was used to in Turkey so it's nothing extraordinary.

Ian

 

[Ian-Barber]

Just brought my thermometer out the darkroom, its dropped at least 3 degrees since bringing it out

 

[Alan9940]

My darkroom runs about 81-84 degrees F during our long summer months. For film processing, I use a tempered water bath when developing film in tanks or a "ice brick" in the upper water trough of my Jobo. I don't try to print analog silver prints because the print developer temp causes very short development times. And, you can run into "gelatin issues" at high temperatures. That said, I reserve my pt/pd printing for the summer months because I develop these prints at about 110 degrees F. So, silver gelatin in the winter; pt/pd in the summer.

Btw, love that book you have the thermometer sitting on!!