Ice A/C...

[The master plan]

Anybody ever try to make a A/C system with frozen water? I know its done commercially use a A/C system to freeze the water. But couldn't you use plastic 55 gal barrels filled 3/4 full and buried just deep enough (in the shade on the North side of a building) to freeze solid in the winter and not thaw out right away in the spring when the frost leaves. Maybe shallow with some R5 or 10 pink foam around them? Or a single large tank(more $$'s)
I was thinking of a coil of 3/4 pex filled with the outdoor furnace antifreeze to keep the pipes from freezing and then pumping it to a wood furnace coil in the furnace in the house.
Now before you shoot down this, I live in Minnesota where it's damn cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Why not a one year long mother nature powered heat pump? They cut ice and stored it all summer before...my house is about 800 square feet and about 300 of that is the basement.

[RobertSmalls]

Originally Posted by The master plan

Anybody ever try to make a A/C system with frozen water?

Yes, with great success: I want to build a liquid cooling shirt - Page 3 - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com (pictures on page 4)

If you do the math on cooling a house with ice, though, you'll find you need tons of ice. I mean that literally. Fifty tons of ice a year: Wolfram|Alpha
That's based on EPA estimates of central AC usage for MN ($160/yr), and a CoP of 3. You can beat EPA estimates for sure, and maybe get down to under 20 tons of ice. But still, my recommendation is to get an electric window A/C and use it sparingly. Take it out of the window during cool weeks so it doesn't block the breeze.

[RobertSmalls]

I may as well mention that my grandfather has a house on Ice House Bay in Pennsylvania. When he was young (1930's), there was a company that would cut ice, store it all year in a very large shed insulated with 2' thick of sawdust, and ship it 90 mi south to Pittsburgh year round. His deed says that he owns the land, but not the rights to the ice that forms on it.

[Ryland]

So if you made a cube of ice half the size of a semi trailer, you could cool your house all summer.
Or do like I do here in Wisconsin and open your windows at night, after mid night and close them at 6am, then draw the curtains to keep the sun out.
Humidity is the killer tho on hot days, if you can dehumidify your house even if it's as warm inside as it is outside you will feel cool, so running a small A/C unit at night in your kitchen (warmest room in the summer) to cool and dry it and should provide cheap cooling, if you need to cool your house at all.

[Piwoslaw]

TMP: Storing ice for the better part of the year is not easy. Much more efficient would be an insulated tank holding chilled water. During the day it would absorb heat from the house, then it could be cooled at night, either by a very large heat exchanger, or by a heat pump. This would pretty much be an air conditioner, but with a 12-hour delay. Shedding the heat at night would significantly raise the CoP.

This same system could be used in the winter to store daytime heat/sunshine until the night.

Originally Posted by RobertSmalls

I may as well mention that my grandfather has a house on Ice House Bay in Pennsylvania. When he was young (1930's), there was a company that would cut ice, store it all year in a very large shed insulated with 2' thick of sawdust, and ship it 90 mi south to Pittsburgh year round. His deed says that he owns the land, but not the rights to the ice that forms on it.

This reminds me of what I read on a recent trip to Slovenia. In the village of Škocjan (I highly recommend visiting the Škocjan Caves) the water that froze in local ponds would be cut up and stored underground, each block wrapped in leaves, then covered with a layer of leaves 1 meter thick, and later sold to butchers and dairy shops in Trieste in the summer.

EDIT: I found some info on that:

Equally special is the ice pit near the house Kačiče No 27 which was built around 1860 and is almost entirely dug into a Karst sinkhole. Known as the ice factory, it is the largest ice pit in the area. It is 19 metres deep, cylinder-shaped with a diameter of 17 metres and with a central 32-metre high column that served as support for the cone-shaped roof. The roof was first thatched with straw and later covered with red tiles ("korci"). A wooden staircase led inside. In the courtyard of his house, the owner Mušič from Trieste kept a large pair of scales for wagons containing ice that he also bought from private farmers. After his death in 1906, the ice pit ceased to operate and started to gradually deteriorate. We could say that this coincides with the appearance of first cold-storage plants at the end of the 19th century.

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by The master plan

Anybody ever try to make a A/C system with frozen water?

Interesting thread...

It is being done already, usually on a commercial basis.

As we progress further into the decline of fossil fuels and the rise of energy costs,

the ideas that worked in the past, such as Piwoslaw described, will again become valid approaches because the cost of energy will become similar to what it was then.

But certainly we have learned things along the way that will make the future a different place than the past.

I like RobertSmalls analysis using Wolfram|Alpha, but that analysis is based on a 'normal' house configuration, one that has evolved in an era of anomalously cheap energy. If we were to use the proven ideas of Passive House construction, and built a house that only required 10% of the heating and cooling load, then we would see that the ice-cooling approach (if still needed) would only require 10% of RobertSmalls calculation, or 5 Ton, instead of 50 Tons. This would be pretty close to twenty 55 gallon barrels... now we are approaching the realm of the do-able.

And the idea of a "very large shed insulated with 2' thick [walls filled with] sawdust" is still a great idea, but why should the ice get all the benefit, instead of the people suffering in poorly-insulated houses?

If we built houses for people, similarly-insulated to the ice houses of the past, which took advantage of super insulation, earth berming, and earth-tempered ventilation tubes, houses designed to meet aesthetic needs as well as thermal needs, wouldn't we be much better off, and better prepared for the future?

-AC_Hacker

[The master plan]

You posted a pic I have seen before! I knew it was done in large office buildings. I think the a problem with 55 gal drums would be a smaller amount of volume in each would want to melt sooner than than one large container. (I do get free drums at work, so no expense there) A large tank would be costly and have to be hidden from neighbors eyes as I live in the city. That was the idea of it being underground and in the shade. Maybe a dual purpose, when the ice melts you could use the water to irrigate the yard, flush the toilet or wash clothes. You could refill it again before winter with Fall rain-showers. I know it would be hard to build it big enough for most homes, but mine is small and shaded.
Yes, I do open the windows at night, but not when it is hot and humid. Yes I have a small A/C in the window, but I am a tinkerer and would love the idea of a completely zero energy house. Perhaps it isn't the easiest or best way...but to simply say it can't be done doesn't fly in my book. Thanks A/C Hacker I enjoy reading your posts....

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by The master plan

...to simply say it can't be done doesn't fly in my book...

Who said it can't be done?

-AC

[The master plan]

Figure of speech, not meant for anyone here.

[S-F]

I am in agreement with AC_Hacker here. If houses had 2' walls..... that's more insulation that is recommended for an attic. All you would need to cool the house would be a single 9,000 BTU/H ASHP. It would heat it too. Even then letting the house cool down on a cool night and then closing up the windows until it cools off outside again would do the trick.