How to Prolong Your Vaping in Cold Weather

It’s pretty simple to use combustible cigarettes; all you need is to take a stick from the pack, flick your lighter, then begin to enjoy the plume. Besides, it’s hardly affected by weather – provided you shield them from rain. Electronic cigarettes are truly more advanced with outstanding functions compared with the old combustible.

Notwithstanding, whereas these make them superior to ordinary cigarettes, it makes the device susceptible to various issues; and cold weather is one among them. Luckily, you can still vape through the winter with minimal hurdles provided your gear is configured appropriately. That will not cost you a lot of money – if anything – and it’s simple, but it’s not always straightforward. You need to learn some concepts.

In the winter, certainly, your energy bills rise. During this period, you spend more time indoors meaning you consume a lot of electricity heating your house, switching the lights, and watching TV among other household activities. Whereas your vape may consume the same amount of energy as it does at other times, cold weather can severely shorten your battery life.

An e-cigarette battery is essentially an energy storage component. When it’s charging, the electric current triggers chemical reactions in the electrolytes and converts the electrical energy to chemical energy. Connecting the battery to the e-cig means the chemical reactions go into reverse, and feed the electrical current to the c-cig’s circuit – which in this case the coil. Although these energy conversions aren’t perfect as expected, they work fairly well. In winter, the temperature falls making these chemical reactions less efficient. Consequently, more energy is used to activate electrons, “persuade” them to leave the atoms and get them moving, towards the coil.

Prolonged exposure of e-cig batteries to cold weather has a huge impact on its performance and safety; cold weather increases its internal resistance. This implies that more effort is needed to charge the battery, and its capacity is lowered.

For instance, at -10° Celsius, a fully charged battery holds approximately 70% of its actual capacity but the real performance you get from it may be worse than that. Excess drain results in sharp performance loss, which is indeed bad news for heavy vapers – you could easily lose about 50% of your battery capacity a few degrees below the freezing temperature.

Also, in cold weather, you might as well find the set maximum voltage for a fully-charged battery falling. As much as operating vapes in cold weather do not necessarily result in permanent damage to the batteries, it means you’re required to charge them more often. You should ensure the battery is brought to room temperature before charging them, otherwise, you’ll permanently reduce their storage capacity.

Fortunately, it’s easy to accomplish this; by keeping the batteries warm. Even in Greenland, where the entire territory is absolutely cold, keeping your vape inside your pocket should be okay. This way, much energy won’t be used to activate the internal chemistry whenever you fire your vape. Also, the battery life will always be closer to normal.

You most likely wouldn’t expect to encounter problems with your vape juice in cold weather. Besides, some manufacturers keep reminding us that their products have antifreeze in them, so that shouldn’t worry us. But is it true? Not exactly. Well, propylene glycol (PG) is a commonly used antifreeze ingredient in vape juice. It freezes at markedly chilly weather -59°Celsius (-74° Fahrenheit) meaning if you are caught in such kind of weather you would certainly have bigger worries than your inability to vape.

In its pure form, vegetable glycerin (VG), the other primary component, freezes at 13°Celsius, which is not that cold anyway. But immediately you start blending VG with other ingredients, its freezing point drops off steeply. For instance, when mixed with water in a 2:1 ratio, the freezing point falls away to -46°Celsius. This means you will start having issues “miles away” before the weather reaches the freezing point for your vape juice.

Most probably, your vape juice may become thicker and more viscous resulting in wicking difficulties. A configuration that keeps the coil perfectly “oiled” in summer could badly fail in winter, and this could result in burnt hits and dry hits.

Vaping in cold weather is not all difficult, provided you are not the kind that loves drawing attention to yourself. In fact, your clouds would be bigger and denser in the chilly atmosphere, but of course still less noticeable compared to when vaping in summer. During the cold months, all you need is to adjust your vaping behaviours.

For instance, if you’re the sort that spends more time vaping outdoors, winter won’t allow you to enjoy this freedom. But some simple things may prolong your vaping in cold weather and make it more satisfying. They include the following:

If you’ve invested in a metal vape drip tip, it’s high time to consider another piece suitable for cold weather. Naturally, metallic materials are good conductors of heat; they absorb cold well. If you’re using a metallic drip tip in cold weather, it implies you’re exposing your mouth to an extremely cold material and this could cause some chapping or irritation of some sort.

Besides, the cold feeling against your mouth is just unpleasant. There is a wide variety of drip tip materials in the market that will prevent your lips from feeling frosty during cold weather. Consider investing in glass- or plastic-made drip tips during winter.

You might be amused to discover how cold weather severely changes how your e-juice hits your throat. Ordinary, vape juice consists of a pool of molecules where each has its freezing point. Water forms the largest part of flavor molecules implying they tend to freeze in cold weather. But VG and PG are alcohol compounds that won’t freeze in the actual freezing point of water (0°Celsius).

In cold weather, the e-liquid becomes thicker. While the vapor clouds will be much denser and larger, your throat hit will obviously be less pronounced. So if you would like to gravitate towards high levels of Propylene glycol, ensure that the amount is increased during cold weather.

There are plenty of tasty vape flavors that truly treat you right during cold weather. If you really want to grace your wintertime with appetizing vaping sessions, consider investing in vape juices that are flavored with delectable seasonal flavors such as eggnog, bold tobacco, or peppermint mocha among others.

A dead battery is one sure method to killing your vaping vibe. E-cig are ultra-sensitive to cold weather. Vape batteries function in a way that involves fast-moving current carriers (electrons) that supply electricity to the vape circuit (coil). When these electrons are exposed to cold weather, they slow down. In simpler terms, they do not move as faster as they are supposed to.

Here, the battery works double-time to attain the designed objective. This does not only put more strain on the battery life, but it’s also undesirable to the overall health/longevity of the battery. So, what’s the most appropriate way to keep your hardware healthy? It’s simple; avoid vaping in extremely cold weather. Keep your device indoors and use it there when temperatures drop off too low.

Let’s be frank, though you should try it yourself. The other way to protect and preserve your battery’s health/longevity is to shield it when enjoying your vape in cold weather. Your body temperature should be adequate to warm the device by holding it. When temperatures start dipping, don’t leave your mod in the car or on the porch. Learn to take care of your device as it will reciprocate your kindness. This is indeed the easiest way to preserve your vape’s health.

Don’t be cheated, it's only the battery that requires it to be warm. Extreme cold temperatures also ruin your vape cartridges. We’ve always overemphasized keeping your e-liquid away from direct sunlight only to forget about mentioning the impact of “too cold” temperatures. When temperatures drop off very low, your vaping experience can be a huge hit or an unforgettable miss.

Room temperature is what is normally suggested. While outside, in cold weather, you should keep it inside your pocket where your body heat helps regulate the temperature around the device. Keeping your cartridge warm will guarantee you superb hits at all times. It will as well ensure the content inside doesn’t change the consistency, which could otherwise result in an undesirable vaping experience.

Alternatively, while the vape juice in the cartridge may not necessarily freeze in cold weather, it can become viscous rendering the wicking process difficult and result in burnt and dry hits. You can avoid these unpleasant experiences by keeping your vaping devices and products in a dark compartment away from extreme weather changes.

As aforementioned, vaping in cold weather comes with positives and adverse impacts. Firstly, with colder air moving through the vape, into the atomizer, the heat your device generates is obviously less. In simpler words, your device will generate less noticeable heat which is not as strong as when vaping in room ambient temperatures. With weaker hits, you might be coaxed to take longer pulls to make up. It’s recommended to avoid doing it.

Longer draws implies you would be overworking your battery to attain the desired outcome. This will only cause permanent damage to your battery life and risk running a dead vape in your subsequent vaping sessions.

Usually, we are a “puff, puff, and pass” community. In winter, you should do things differently by being a little bit stingier. Post-pandemic times have really taught the world the importance of preventing the spread of disease-causing microorganisms.

Vaping in winter means vaping in the flu-infected season. COVID-19 symptoms and flu symptoms indeed are almost the same. So, to avoid contracting or transmitting the disease to another person, you should keep your device to yourself and let the other person keep theirs.

While this might appear awkward in the grand scheme of events, you would be amazed by the number of people who forget to put on to vape in cold weather. You should always wear gloves. Vaping in the cold means your cartridge may cool up and you will be left pulling vapor from really cold vape and ultimately having an unpleasant vaping experience.

It’s not a bad idea to draw a puff of your vape out on the porch while enjoying the view of snow falling peacefully. But leaving the device outside is not right. It will freeze.

Chapped lips may be one reason you’re not interested in vaping in cold weather. But you can easily solve it. First, you can reduce exposing your lips to frigid temperatures that take a toll on your whole vaping experience. Secondly, you can apply moisturizing lip balm on your lips to keep them soft and sturdy to withstand extreme cold weather.

Provided you’re not vaping outside in Antarctica's cold weather, you are good to go. There is no proven real physical danger associated with vaping in the cold. All that you need is to follow the aforementioned tips to not only achieve a satisfying vaping experience but also preserve your vape.

Also, keep in mind that in cold weather, the humidity is obviously low and vaping may cause dry throat. Constant coughing is one sign of dry throat. As much as it’s not dangerous, it is not a pleasant experience. So you should always carry a bottle of water to moisturize your mouth.

You shouldn’t give up vaping just because temperatures outside are dipping. You have plenty of vaping experience yet to be explored.