uses for excess ice
 

So, where I work there is ice that's thrown out every day that has no issue they just clean out the ice maker and throw away the unused ice. What, if any would be decent uses for this ice. Would putting a container of ice inside the fridge be a decent use for it? Anybody built any halfway decent cooling rigs with ice? It's free, I wouldn't be going out of my way to get it and I'd have maybe 50 pounds a day. with a free source of ice would just unplugging the fridge and using some sort of ice box be worthwhile? I could go without a freezer, it sort of just becomes a pit for things to sit for years without being used.

I had a power bill of only 130 KWH for the month of may and I am guessing that most of it would have been from the fridge.

Just did a quick google search and found this. Pretty interesting and nice to see someone else do the math (so I don't have to haha).

http://www.elitesoft.com/sci.hvac/iticehou.html


So, from his calculations, you have roughly 10k BTUs of cooling in 50 lbs of ice. Not insignificant, but not a huge amount either. Thats the equivalent of running a window A/C unit for a few hours depending on the size.

to add to this, There is also a chest freezer and upright freezer constantly plugged in to serve people who rent a building for events. This doesn't really cut down on power usage overall but it could potentially save me money. If I did attempt this ice box approach I could freeze and refreeze large blocks of ice in those freezers and just swap blocks out when I'm there. I just looked in my fridge and I realized that I could condense everything to a small cooler and potentially save money just by not buying junk and loading up a fridge and not ever eating some of the food. By limiting space and eliminating a freezer I potentially would be limiting my diet to either boxed or canned food or the freshest food. Seems like a possible win all around. I usually eat breakfast and lunch at work anyway. After all that rationalization I think I am going to attempt it.

A gas station nearby use their old ice for the male urinals...

Did you ever make any decisions on how to use the ice?

The cheapest simplest thing I can think of would be to put a wire mesh hopper against the condenser coils on the home A/C unit, let the house stay nice and hot and sticky then crank up the A/C after the ice goes on.
Or switch to iced coolers for all your food preserving needs lol.