I use a bucket of water to cool the tube, but it never complains about the temp even when the water is warm, and the water gets pretty warm... It used to complain sometimes that the water wasn't cold enough. I think at one point when I updated the settings I may have disabled the temp sensor unintentionally, but I don't know that for sure. I do know that when I first got the machine, it used to complain about not being cold enough, and now it doesn't do that anymore. By shorten the tube life, do you mean that the tube would become weaker and eventually not work at all?