Is it better to use warm or cold air to defrost your windshield?
If you can’t alter the air’s humidity, warm air will definitely heat up your window faster and defrost it faster than cold air. The only problem with using hot air is that rapid heating can cause stresses on the window and its frame because the temperature will rise somewhat unevenly and lead to uneven thermal expansion. Such thermal stress can actually break the window, as a reader informed me recently: “On one of the coldest days of this Boston winter, I turned up the heat full blast to defrost the windshield. The outside of the window was still covered with ice, which I figured would melt from the heat. After about 10 minutes of heating, the windshield “popped” and a fracture about 8 inches long developed. The windshield replacement company said I would have to wait a day for service, since this happened to so many people over the cold evening that they were completely booked.” If you’re nervous about breaking the windshield, use cooler air.
About the humidity caveat: if you can blow dry air across your windshield, that will defrost it faster than just about anything else, even if that air is cold. The water molecules on your windshield are constantly shifting back and forth between the solid phase (ice) and the gaseous phase (steam or water vapor). Heating the ice will help more water molecules leave the ice for the water vapor, but dropping the density of the water vapor will reduce the number of water molecules leaving the water vapor for the ice. Either way, the ice decreases and the water vapor increases. Since you car’s air condition begins drying the air much soon after you start the car than its heater begins warming the air, many modern cars concentrate first on drying the air rather than on heating it.