whither the ice house?
dances_wit...@yahoo.com
annual storage of coolth. This was done for thousands of years,
until the advent of cheap fossil-fuel power for home delivery. And
with modern insulation technology, it requires much less space.
how expensive would electricity have to become, before entrepreneurs
would devote time to becoming skilled at doing turn-key installations
of well-thought-out, conveniently-useable ice houses in private homes,
the way that there's a category of specialists who do solar-hot-water
installs?
the premise here is that a well-planned installation would be _close
enough_ to the usage-convenience of a kitchen refrigerator, that the
"chores" aspect of the old ice house, wouldn't exist enough to stop
buyers.
Anthony Matonak
...
> how expensive would electricity have to become, before entrepreneurs
> would devote time to becoming skilled at doing turn-key installations
> of well-thought-out, conveniently-useable ice houses in private homes,
> the way that there's a category of specialists who do solar-hot-water
> installs?
>
> the premise here is that a well-planned installation would be _close
> enough_ to the usage-convenience of a kitchen refrigerator, that the
> "chores" aspect of the old ice house, wouldn't exist enough to stop
> buyers.
As I see it, in this modern age there is no need for "chores" related
to an ice house. The whole thing can be automated and insulated pipes
filled with antifreeze/water could carry the "cool" to an inside
insulated box in the kitchen.
I just don't see the idea catching on because a good fridge these days
only consumes one or two kWh a day. Electricity would have to get very
expensive before someone would give up what a fridge offers.
I also understand that seasonal storage can get quite cumbersome. It
might be cheaper to setup a solar thermal powered ice maker and only
store the "cold" for a few days or weeks at a time.
Anthony
Eeyore
dances_wit...@yahoo.com wrote:
> a large portion of North America is exceptionally well suited to
> annual storage of coolth. This was done for thousands of years,
The American Indians did it too ?
Graham
krw
@nothing.like.socal.rr.com says...
> dances_wit...@yahoo.com wrote:
> ...
> > how expensive would electricity have to become, before entrepreneurs
> > would devote time to becoming skilled at doing turn-key installations
> > of well-thought-out, conveniently-useable ice houses in private homes,
> > the way that there's a category of specialists who do solar-hot-water
> > installs?
> >
> > the premise here is that a well-planned installation would be _close
> > enough_ to the usage-convenience of a kitchen refrigerator, that the
> > "chores" aspect of the old ice house, wouldn't exist enough to stop
> > buyers.
It would never recover its cost.
> As I see it, in this modern age there is no need for "chores" related
> to an ice house. The whole thing can be automated and insulated pipes
> filled with antifreeze/water could carry the "cool" to an inside
> insulated box in the kitchen.
>
> I just don't see the idea catching on because a good fridge these days
> only consumes one or two kWh a day. Electricity would have to get very
> expensive before someone would give up what a fridge offers.
You mean people would rather pay more money than get food poisoning?
What a concept.
> I also understand that seasonal storage can get quite cumbersome. It
> might be cheaper to setup a solar thermal powered ice maker and only
> store the "cold" for a few days or weeks at a time.
>
> Anthony
>
--
Keith
Brian
Actually, if you wanted "off the grid" refrigeration, going all the way back
to the icehouse era isn't necessary. A step back of a few decades, where we
find insulated chests with a device such as an IcyBall, is all that is
necessary.
B.
George Grapman
baseball games. Very frugal considering the cost of food and drinks at a
game.
--
To reply via e-mail please delete 1 c from paccbell
Al Bundy
When I was a kid they used to have ice wagons. People used ice boxes.
And for many years later, they still used it in summer for seasonal
sales. The ice was cut from Lake Huron. Nobody worried about consuming
the ice either. If you have the space, the insulation is child's play.
Procuring the ice is labor intensive and if naturally made ice runs
the risk of contamination more than in those years. There must be a
better and cheaper way. One way is to do as we might with gasoline,
use less of the product.
nicks...@ece.villanova.edu
>Procuring the ice is labor intensive...
>There must be a better and cheaper way.
Using NREL's TMY2 ("Typical Meteorological Year") hourly weather data file
for Philadelphia, one of 239 US cities listed at
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/tmy2/
10 OPEN "tmycool" FOR INPUT AS #1
30 FOR H=1 TO 8760'read ambient temperature every hour for a year
40 LINE INPUT#1, S$'input a line from the TMY2 file
50 TEMP=VAL(MID$(S$,27,4))'ambient temp (F)
60 ATEMPT=ATEMPT+TEMP'accumulate average yearly temperature
70 IF TEMP < 32 THEN FDHT=FDHT+32-TEMP'accumulate freezing degree-hours
80 IF TEMP > 32 THEN MDHT=MDHT+TEMP-32'accumulate melting degree-hours
90 NEXT H
100 PRINT "average yearly temperature:";ATEMPT/8760
110 PRINT "freezing-degree days:";FDHT/24
120 PRINT "melting-degree days:";MDHT/24
130 CLOSE 1
this fine BASIC program yields:
average yearly temperature: 53.62591 (F),
freezing-degree days: 339.4584, and
melting-degree days: 8232.917,
like heating and cooling degree days (F) for 32 F houses. The number of
"freezing degree days" (FDD) is the total equivalent number of days in
which the outdoor temperature is less than freezing during a typical year,
times the difference in degrees between 32 F and the outdoor temperature,
on each of those days.
The FDD for a particular climate measures how easy it is to make ice. We
can freeze a pound of water with 144 Btu at 32 F, and a water surface has
a thermal conductance of about 1.5 Btu/h-F-ft^2 in still air, and a cubic
foot of water weighs about 64 pounds, ie 5 pounds per inch of depth, so
1 FDD can freeze an ice layer 24hx1.5/(144x5.3) = 0.05" thick, on top of
32 F water. In Philadelphia, we might freeze a layer of ice about 339x0.05
= 16" thick on some sort of specially-designed icemaking pond...
Melting degree-days determine how big an icehouse must be to stay cold
for a year. Bigger icehouses work better. An L' icecube surrounded by R40
insulation contains about 64L^3 pounds of water, ignoring the insulation
thickness, and initially stores about 9200L^3 Btu of coolth with a yearly
heat gain of about 24hx8200x6L^2/R40 Btu in Phila, for a minimum L = 3'.
A 5x5x5 = 125ft^3 icecube inside a 10' strawbale cube might stay partially
frozen all year, if it were first frozen solid and it only had to keep
itself and some vegetables cool, vs say, air-conditioning a nearby building.
Freezing a 5' cube takes about 5^3x64x144 = 1.15 million Btu. An A ft^2
roofpond can make 24x339x1.5A = 1.15 million, so A = 94 ft^2, eg a 10'x10'
salt water pond under IR-transparent polyethylene film in freezing weather.
Winter winds and night sky radiation would cool the pond more, as would
evaporation, without the poly film.
A low-power pump might flood the pond at night and let it flow back into
a tray above an 8'x8'x4' thick 256 ft^3 water wall inside a 10' cubical
outdoor fridge. The wall might be welded-wire mesh and 2x4 shelves under
plastic film 55 gallon drum liners, as Anna Edey used to store solar heat
in her Cape Cod Solviva greenhouse.
An air-antifreeze heat exchanger and fan might replace the roof pond...
Something like a $35 used 1984 Dodge Omni auto radiator with its 12V fan
or Magicaire's $150 2'x2' SHW 2347 heat exchanger, which can transfer
45K Btu/hour between 125 F water and 68 F air at about 800 Btu/h-F at
1400 cfm (like a window fan) with a low airflow resistance and an air
pressure drop equivalent to a 0.1" column of water. A 100 watt fan might
run 2.3million/(800x(32-25)) = 410 hours at 25 F to freeze the wall,
consuming 41 kWh/year, ie about $4 at 10 cents/kWh, while providing
256 ft^3 of year-round refrigerated space inside the 512 ft^3 box, like
17 home fridges. Is it time for neighborhood icehouses yet? Fill them
with beer to facilitate apres-lawn-mowing-male-bonding? And what will
we do about lawns, after the oil runs out?
Nick
dances_wit...@yahoo.com
> melting-degree days: 8232.917,
> heat gain of about 24hx 8200 x6L^2/R40 Btu
you're doing a roundoff? or 8200 was something else?
nicks...@ece.villanova.edu
Yes... 8200 is about the same as 8232.917, and a lot like 10,000.
Nick
Steve Spence
house is an appropriate solution. We have built in-basement ice houses, and
collected ice from the pond in winter. The ice stays with us through
October. Outdoor temps rarely exceed 90F here in upstate NY.
--
Steve Spence
Director, Green-Trust
http://www.green-trust.org
http://www.green-trust.org/bookshop/
"Morris Dovey" <mrd...@iedu.com> wrote in message
news:46a65c74$0$495$815e...@news.qwest.net...
> dances_wit...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> | how expensive would electricity have to become, before entrepreneurs
> | would devote time to becoming skilled at doing turn-key
> | installations of well-thought-out, conveniently-useable ice houses
> | in private homes, the way that there's a category of specialists
> | who do solar-hot-water installs?
>
> Judging by the speed with which already paid-for iceboxes were
> replaced with expensive compressor refrigerators, I think it'd need to
> get pretty expensive.
>
> There are other solutions available beside those you mentioned,
> including some solar refrigeration possibilities using solar-stirling
> lash-ups. I'm (slowly) working toward one such implementation -
> described at the link below...
>
> --
> Morris Dovey
> DeSoto Solar
> DeSoto, Iowa USA
> http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Stirling/
>
>
Morris Dovey
| When power is in short supply, and winter provides sufficient ice,
| a ice house is an appropriate solution. We have built in-basement
| ice houses, and collected ice from the pond in winter. The ice
| stays with us through October. Outdoor temps rarely exceed 90F here
| in upstate NY.
I'm not questioning the technical possibility. I'd suggest discussing
this issue with your wife/mother/grandmother before allowing yourself
to become too enthusiastic about this particular choice.
I remember iceboxes (in small town Michigan) and would assure you that
they weren't abandoned for reasons that had anything to do (directly)
with the technology involved.
I also remember that there weren't any frozen foods in the grocery
store.
Morris Dovey
| how expensive would electricity have to become, before entrepreneurs
| would devote time to becoming skilled at doing turn-key
| installations of well-thought-out, conveniently-useable ice houses
| in private homes, the way that there's a category of specialists
| who do solar-hot-water installs?
Judging by the speed with which already paid-for iceboxes were
replaced with expensive compressor refrigerators, I think it'd need to
get pretty expensive.
There are other solutions available beside those you mentioned,
including some solar refrigeration possibilities using solar-stirling
lash-ups. I'm (slowly) working toward one such implementation -
described at the link below...
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Stirling/
Ecnerwal
"Morris Dovey" <mrd...@iedu.com> wrote:
> Steve Spence wrote:
> | When power is in short supply, and winter provides sufficient ice,
> | a ice house is an appropriate solution. We have built in-basement
> | ice houses, and collected ice from the pond in winter. The ice
> | stays with us through October. Outdoor temps rarely exceed 90F here
> | in upstate NY.
>
> I'm not questioning the technical possibility. I'd suggest discussing
> this issue with your wife/mother/grandmother before allowing yourself
> to become too enthusiastic about this particular choice.
I would not assume that a direct return to the technology of the
traditional (messy, warmish) ice-box is appropriate. If you can provide
a little bit of power to run a circulator pump, you can have the mess
and fuss contained outside or in the basement (and reduce the fuss quite
a bit), and pipe the cool (via insulated pipes) to a dedicated
refrigerator which might be built from an old upright freezer box - or
you might have a small walk-in fridge and freezer with the cooling for
the fridge section coming from ice-house as long as possible, and
compressor if/when that runs out. If there's more ice capacity, cool
(within specs, but given that they work with outside air through the
winter, this is a wider spec than typical house fridges) the condenser
for the freezer part as well.
--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Steve Spence
walk-in cooler. Food was stored on shelves in the ice room.
--
Steve Spence
Director, Green-Trust
http://www.green-trust.org
http://www.green-trust.org/bookshop/
"Morris Dovey" <mrd...@iedu.com> wrote in message
news:46a66e94$0$505$815e...@news.qwest.net...
Morris Dovey
| It wasn't an ice box. It was an ice house, in the basement. sort of
| a walk-in cooler. Food was stored on shelves in the ice room.
Ah! Thank you - I read "ice house" and thought "ice box". My mistake.
Still, that strikes me as a project needing a considerable mass of ice
and a substantial volume of insulation if it's to last from winter to
winter (or harvest to harvest).
Too much heavy lifting for me - I'll continue working on a solar
solution.
nicks...@ece.villanova.edu
>Steve Spence wrote:
>
>| It wasn't an ice box. It was an ice house, in the basement. sort of
>| a walk-in cooler. Food was stored on shelves in the ice room.
>
>Ah! Thank you - I read "ice house" and thought "ice box". My mistake.
>
>Still, that strikes me as a project needing a considerable mass of ice
>and a substantial volume of insulation if it's to last from winter to
>winter (or harvest to harvest).
>
The ice might freeze in winter, then melt, then refreeze in place.
Nick
Steve Spence
The walls are insulated with 12" of pink foam, surrounded with 60F dirt.
--
Steve Spence
Director, Green-Trust
http://www.green-trust.org
http://www.green-trust.org/bookshop/
"Morris Dovey" <mrd...@iedu.com> wrote in message
news:46a6be04$0$496$815e...@news.qwest.net...
Morris Dovey
| The slabs of ice are 3' x 2' x 8"
|
| The walls are insulated with 12" of pink foam, surrounded with 60F
| dirt.
Interesting. Do you recall the size of the room and the number of
slabs needed to keep it cool?
Was this set up to occupy the entire "basement"?
Harry K
Yep. We lived with an icebox until 1948 when REA came through. A
messy appliance needing regular care. The lack of a freezing
capability would kill any 'market' except for the die hard "back-to-
nature" types.
Harry K
Harry K
> It wasn't an ice box. It was an ice house, in the basement. sort of a
> walk-in cooler. Food was stored on shelves in the ice room.
>
> --
> Steve Spence
> Director, Green-Trusthttp://www.green-trust.orghttp://www.green-trust.org/bookshop/
>
>
> news:46a66e94$0$505$815e...@news.qwest.net...
>
>
>
> > Steve Spence wrote:
> > | When power is in short supply, and winter provides sufficient ice,
> > | a ice house is an appropriate solution. We have built in-basement
> > | ice houses, and collected ice from the pond in winter. The ice
> > | stays with us through October. Outdoor temps rarely exceed 90F here
> > | in upstate NY.
>
> > I'm not questioning the technical possibility. I'd suggest discussing
> > this issue with your wife/mother/grandmother before allowing yourself
> > to become too enthusiastic about this particular choice.
>
> > I remember iceboxes (in small town Michigan) and would assure you that
> > they weren't abandoned for reasons that had anything to do (directly)
> > with the technology involved.
>
> > I also remember that there weren't any frozen foods in the grocery
> > store.
>
> > --
> > Morris Dovey
> > DeSoto Solar
> > DeSoto, Iowa USA
>
> - Show quoted text -
Even more messy and labor intensive. Still lacks any freezer
capability.
No woman except for a rare few would willingly give up the modern
refrigerator.
Harry K
Anthony Matonak
...
> Yep. We lived with an icebox until 1948 when REA came through. A
> messy appliance needing regular care. The lack of a freezing
> capability would kill any 'market' except for the die hard "back-to-
> nature" types.
Perhaps we could have the best of both worlds. Start with an ice house
filled with trays of water/ice that has automatic doors or shutters
which open when the temperature outside is below freezing. Perhaps even
designed to make use of prevailing winds or including some kind of fan.
Attached to this could be a fridge and/or freezer using a heat pump
with a heat exchanger inside the ice house.
You would get the modern features of an ordinary fridge or freezer
with minimal energy use. If you're located somewhere without lots of
cold weather then perhaps one of those solar ice makers could be used.
Anthony
RW Salnick
Better yet: Take advantage of modern technology while minimizing energy
usage.
Build the icehouse, and use it as the heat sink for conventional
refrigeration. Would take essentially zero energy to move heat downhill
from a 40 degree fridge to a 32 degree ice block. And not much more to
move it uphill from a 0 degree freezer to the 32 degree ice block.
Would work great for air conditioning too. Much better than pumping the
heat uphill into a 72 degree environment (conventional fridge/freezer),
or even worse, into a 90-100 degree environment (airconditioning)
bob
s/v Eolian
Seattle
nicks...@ece.villanova.edu
>Build the icehouse, and use it as the heat sink for conventional
>refrigeration. Would take essentially zero energy to move heat downhill
>from a 40 degree fridge to a 32 degree ice block.
Oh?
>And not much more to move it uphill from a 0 degree freezer to the 32 degree
>ice block.
That seems like a good idea, with a natural fridge, eg a room full of
ice shelves interspersed with salt water stalagtites below a roofpond.
>Would work great for air conditioning too.
Not enough ice.
Nick
KLS
wrote:
These are great ideas, and I'm going to think about incorporating them
all into any building plans I make, along with the solar panels I'd
like to install for heating the house water. We're in western New
York, so this could work really well. The more passive, the better!
[fyi, posting from misc.consumers.house, so followups directed
elsewhere will elude my attention]
Harry K
> On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:43:17 -0700, RW Salnick <saln...@no.spam.org>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Yes, some ideas that seem workable. Just keep in mind that unless it
provides for frozen food storeage all year round it will be a non-
starter.
Harry K
Anthony Matonak
> RW Salnick <sal...@no.spam.org> wrote:
>
>> Build the icehouse, and use it as the heat sink for conventional
>> refrigeration.
>> Would work great for air conditioning too.
>
> Not enough ice.
It's just a question of scale, isn't it? One could figure out how
much ice is needed to keep their house cold throughout the year
and then build an ice house big enough.
I'm thinking one of those cheap steel buildings the size of a small
hanger with a foot or so of spray foam insulation on the inside. :)
Any idea of just how much ice would we be talking about?
Anthony
WDS
<anthony...@nothing.like.socal.rr.com> wrote:
> nicksans...@ece.villanova.edu wrote:
You realize that transporting, storing, and stacking that much ice is
going to cost you more than running your AC?
Morris Dovey
| nicks...@ece.villanova.edu wrote:
|| RW Salnick <sal...@no.spam.org> wrote:
||
||| Build the icehouse, and use it as the heat sink for conventional
||| refrigeration.
| ...
||| Would work great for air conditioning too.
||
|| Not enough ice.
|
| It's just a question of scale, isn't it? One could figure out how
| much ice is needed to keep their house cold throughout the year
| and then build an ice house big enough.
|
| I'm thinking one of those cheap steel buildings the size of a small
| hanger with a foot or so of spray foam insulation on the inside. :)
Erm... My shop is /in/ a small hanger (you can see pix by following
the links at the page below) - and I'm curious as to what you consider
to be a "cheap" building. I'm thinking that just the insulation you've
described would be fairly spendy...
| Any idea of just how much ice would we be talking about?
Ah yes - this is the important question.
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/interest.html
Rod Speed
>>> Build the icehouse, and use it as the heat sink for conventional refrigeration.
> ...
>>> Would work great for air conditioning too.
>> Not enough ice.
> It's just a question of scale, isn't it?
Only in theory.
> One could figure out how much ice is needed to keep their house cold throughout the year and then
> build an ice house big enough.
Problem is that that ends up impractically big, wont even fit on the block.
> I'm thinking one of those cheap steel buildings the size of a small
> hanger with a foot or so of spray foam insulation on the inside. :)
> Any idea of just how much ice would we be talking about?
More than is practical.
nicks...@ece.villanova.edu
>nicks...@ece.villanova.edu wrote:
>> RW Salnick <sal...@no.spam.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Build the icehouse, and use it as the heat sink for conventional
>>> refrigeration.
>...
>>> Would work great for air conditioning too.
>>
>> Not enough ice.
>
>It's just a question of scale, isn't it?
Yes.
>One could figure out how much ice is needed to keep their house cold
>throughout the year and then build an ice house big enough.
Yes.
>I'm thinking one of those cheap steel buildings the size of a small
>hanger with a foot or so of spray foam insulation on the inside. :)
That could work, with a large enough hangar.
>Any idea of just how much ice would we be talking about?
Phila (not too hot) has 1101 F cooling degree days, so a typical house
with a 400 Btu/h-F conductance and no internal heat gains would require
24hx1101x400 = 10.5 million Btu/year of cooling, which might come from
10.5M/144 = 73,400 pounds or about 1281 ft^3 of perfectly-insulated ice.
Al Bundy <MSfo...@mcpmail.com> wrote:
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/tmy2/
roofpond can make 24x339x1.5A = 1.15 million, so A = 94 ft^2, with some
thermosyphoning salt water stalagtites under a 10'x10' salt water pond
under IR-transparent polyethylene film in freezing weather. Winter winds
and night sky radiation would cool the pond more, as would evaporation,
without the poly film to keep the pond clean.
Jim
"Morris Dovey" <mrd...@iedu.com> wrote
> | Any idea of just how much ice would we be talking about?
>
> Ah yes - this is the important question.
It's not how much ice, but how COLD it is. +30*, or -50*? Big
difference....
Morris Dovey
I'm looking for information - not a dance partner.
You're evading the question. Pick a temperature that fits a location
in upstate NY, tell us where upstate, what the temperature is, and
take your best shot at the quantity of ice.
no spam
> | a walk-in cooler. Food was stored on shelves in the ice room.
>
> Ah! Thank you - I read "ice house" and thought "ice box". My mistake.
>
> Still, that strikes me as a project needing a considerable mass of ice
> and a substantial volume of insulation if it's to last from winter to
> winter (or harvest to harvest).
>
> Too much heavy lifting for me - I'll continue working on a solar
> solution.
There are a few solar cooling solutions. In no particular order;
PV electricity to run standard cooling.
use solar powered heat engine to: 1) run a genny to run standard cooling, 2)
to run a compressor for standard cooling.
My plan, to use solar thermal to run an absorption cooling system with a
closed loop ground water secondary system powered by PV. (the same group of
PV cells will also be used to run my well pump in case of grid failure)
Morris Dovey
| There are a few solar cooling solutions. In no particular order;
|
| PV electricity to run standard cooling.
|
| use solar powered heat engine to: 1) run a genny to run standard
| cooling, 2) to run a compressor for standard cooling.
|
| My plan, to use solar thermal to run an absorption cooling system
| with a closed loop ground water secondary system powered by PV.
| (the same group of PV cells will also be used to run my well pump
| in case of grid failure)
Add another:
The Stirling engine has an interesting symmetry in that if heat is
applied to its hot side, it will convert (some of) that heat energy to
mechanical energy...
...and if mechanical energy is applied, it will develop a hot side and
a cold side.
I understand this second mode is used to achieve extremely cold
(cryogenic) temperatures.
My approach is to use a fluidyne (a liquid-piston Stirling engine)
driven by solar heat to produce mechanical energy - which is then
applied to a second fluidyne to produce a hot side and a cold side.
The cold side is used to remove heat from fluid circulated by (are you
ready for this?) a third fluidyne (pump) driven by solar heat.
So far so good - follow the link in my sig to see photos, drawings,
and a short video of one of the prototype fluidynes running...
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Stirling/
Lou
<nicks...@ece.villanova.edu> wrote in message
news:f89tn7$6...@acadia.ece.villanova.edu...
> Anthony Matonak <antho...@nothing.like.socal.rr.com> wrote:
> >nicks...@ece.villanova.edu wrote:
> >> RW Salnick <sal...@no.spam.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Build the icehouse, and use it as the heat sink for conventional
> >>> refrigeration.
> >...
> >>> Would work great for air conditioning too.
> >>
> >> Not enough ice.
> >
> >It's just a question of scale, isn't it?
>
> Yes.
>
> >One could figure out how much ice is needed to keep their house cold
> >throughout the year and then build an ice house big enough.
>
> Yes.
>
> >I'm thinking one of those cheap steel buildings the size of a small
> >hanger with a foot or so of spray foam insulation on the inside. :)
>
> That could work, with a large enough hangar.
>
> >Any idea of just how much ice would we be talking about?
>
> Phila (not too hot) has 1101 F cooling degree days, so a typical house
> with a 400 Btu/h-F conductance and no internal heat gains would require
> 24hx1101x400 = 10.5 million Btu/year of cooling, which might come from
> 10.5M/144 = 73,400 pounds or about 1281 ft^3 of perfectly-insulated ice.
So that looks like a cube of ice about 11 feet on a side, around 8800
gallons of water.
11 feet on a side doesn't sound very enormous, and 8800 gallons is a pretty
small swimming pool. But moving 73,400 pounds by hand sounds somewhat
daunting - that would mean moving a little over 200 pounds every day for a
year. Of course, it's not freezing cold every day of the year, so you'd
need to multiply that daily total by some factor.
I'd also guess that these figures don't take into account that in the
Philadelphia area, not every day in winter is below freezing - some of the
ice squirreled away early in winter would melt (how much depends on how well
insulated it is), so you'd probably have to move more ice than these numbers
indicate.
Too, there's no such thing as perfect insulation, and no inhabited house has
no internal heat gains. You'd need a fudge factor that would up the total
as well.
The whole thing sounds a little dubious. If the goal is space cooling,
maybe it would be easier/cheaper to set up a system of buried pipes that
suck in outside air, cool it underground, and vent into the house? Or
instead of using ice, how about just using water - you'd need more, of
course, but the first leg of the summer warming cycle would be to cool the
house, then collect the warm water and store it for the winter, where the
first leg of the winter cooling cycle would be to warm the house.
Anthony Matonak
> <nicks...@ece.villanova.edu> wrote in message
>> Anthony Matonak <antho...@nothing.like.socal.rr.com> wrote:
>>> Any idea of just how much ice would we be talking about?
>> Phila (not too hot) has 1101 F cooling degree days, so a typical house
>> with a 400 Btu/h-F conductance and no internal heat gains would require
>> 24hx1101x400 = 10.5 million Btu/year of cooling, which might come from
>> 10.5M/144 = 73,400 pounds or about 1281 ft^3 of perfectly-insulated ice.
>
> So that looks like a cube of ice about 11 feet on a side, around 8800
> gallons of water.
>
> 11 feet on a side doesn't sound very enormous, and 8800 gallons is a pretty
> small swimming pool. But moving 73,400 pounds by hand sounds somewhat
Why move it at all? Why not turn water into ice inside the ice house?
Some kind of automatic device could open doors, or circulate brine,
to 'let the cold in' whenever the outside temperature is below freezing.
> I'd also guess that these figures don't take into account that in the
> Philadelphia area, not every day in winter is below freezing - some of the
> ice squirreled away early in winter would melt (how much depends on how well
> insulated it is), so you'd probably have to move more ice than these numbers
> indicate.
So, one might figure an added fudge factor to cover unknowns and global
climate change and increase the mass of ice accordingly. If we use brine
filled loops of pipe inside the ice house then I would imagine we could
fill almost all of the volume with water/ice. An average two car garage
(24x24x12) has a volume of some 6900 f^2 so this would provide more than
five times the requirement for that Phila house.
> The whole thing sounds a little dubious.
Well, yes, of course it's dubious. Who wants to build a structure as big
or bigger than their house just to store ice throughout the year when
they can just buy an air conditioner?
Anthony
nicks...@ece.villanova.edu
Maybe there's another way...
Nick
nicks...@ece.villanova.edu
>Lou wrote:
>> <nicks...@ece.villanova.edu> wrote in message
>>> Anthony Matonak <antho...@nothing.like.socal.rr.com> wrote:
>>>> Any idea of just how much ice would we be talking about?
>>> Phila (not too hot) has 1101 F cooling degree days, so a typical house
>>> with a 400 Btu/h-F conductance and no internal heat gains would require
>>> 24hx1101x400 = 10.5 million Btu/year of cooling, which might come from
>>> 10.5M/144 = 73,400 pounds or about 1281 ft^3 of perfectly-insulated ice.
>>
>> So that looks like a cube of ice about 11 feet on a side, around 8800
>> gallons of water.
>>
>> 11 feet on a side doesn't sound very enormous, and 8800 gallons is a pretty
>> small swimming pool. But moving 73,400 pounds by hand sounds somewhat
>> daunting ...
>
>Why move it at all? Why not turn water into ice inside the ice house?
Good idea.
>Some kind of automatic device could open doors, or circulate brine,
>to 'let the cold in' whenever the outside temperature is below freezing.
A saltwater roofpond might do that, with thermosyphoning stalagtites
freezing fresh water below.
>> I'd also guess that these figures don't take into account that in the
>> Philadelphia area, not every day in winter is below freezing...
Phila has about 340 "freezing degree-days."
Nick
Steve Spence
The ice fills the top 15' of the space. I don't recall the number of slabs,
we just kept cutting till we couldn't put more in.
--
Steve Spence
Director, Green-Trust
http://www.green-trust.org
http://www.green-trust.org/bookshop/
"Morris Dovey" <mrd...@iedu.com> wrote in message
news:46a73cac$0$493$815e...@news.qwest.net...
Jim
> Jim wrote:
> | "Morris Dovey" <mrd...@iedu.com> wrote
> ||| Any idea of just how much ice would we be talking about?
> ||
> || Ah yes - this is the important question.
> |
> | It's not how much ice, but how COLD it is. +30*, or -50*? Big
> | difference....
>
> I'm looking for information - not a dance partner.
Every pound of ice that is 80 degrees cooler is 80 more btu's of
cooling. -50* ice provides 82 btu's and liquifies, +30* ice provides =2=
btu's and liquifies.
Not all ice is created equal.