Using ice for air conditioning

[Salty9]

Freeman Dyson in his book "Infinite in All Directions" describes being involved in a Princeton project freezing water during the winter, covering it with plastic and straw, and cooling a building the following summer with cold water.

It's not practical where I live but it is elegant and the water could be used for irrigation.

[HalfKeck]

You wonder why more of this is not done. Since mother nature provides the ice and the water free (at least they do not tax it yet)

[JHFoster]

I wonder what would be the head pressure on a system like that?

[pegasuspinto]

I'll make it short and sweet. If it was cheaper to store ice, then to freeze it, then we would still store it. You don't have to look too far in most towns to find an old ice house. There is immense labor in harvesting, moving, and storing ice. Ice is heavy and bulky. Ice stores very poorly. And when you get down to it, it takes a LOT of ice to keep even a small area cool.

Robert

[C-Wade7]

The ice would last great as long as the bulding is sealed, but as soon as you forced air across it it would seem to me that it would mely very fast. But what do I know about ice, 3" of snow here is a blizzard

[Craig A]

The Villa Louis http://villalouis.wisconsinhistory.o...lla/Front.aspx at Praire du Chien (where I will be early next week) used such a system.......

A large, underground, ice storage room is connected to the house by a large tunnel. I don't recall how they moved the air......simple convection maybe.

[greysteam24hp]

A large, underground, ice storage room was connected to the house by a large tunnel. I don't recall how they moved the air......simple convection maybe.

Craig,

I have seen it similar to few Amish neighbors. The cemented underground 5 by 5 feet tunnel. Length is 75 feet long from house. Has open outdoor ventilation on end. They told me it is air conditioning.

[KEB]

The sheer quantity of ice required to provide cooling equivalent to a modern air conditioner makes using ice for space cooling prohibitive. A typical residential air conditioner is rated around three tons. A ton of air conditioning corresponds to removing 12,000 BTU of energy per hour, which is the same amount of energy required to melt 1/24th of a ton of ice.

In order to provide cooling equivalent to a 3 ton residental air conditioner running 12 hour per day, you would have to melt 1-1/2 tons of ice per day. For a three month cooling season, this would amount to something like 135 tons of ice. Where would a typical residental house store 135 tons (roughly 33,000 gallons) of ice?

Keith

[Salty9]

A swimming pool perhaps?

[JHFoster]

33,000 gal is about 5200 cu ft. A room 10'x10'x52' would do it!

[Ironsides]

Let me guess,that room would then be called "the cool room",Norm