Has anyone tried an Ice Well for refrigeration?

Very interesting idea. This is quite similar to what we are doing in our on-farm butcher shop.

I had observed decades ago how we would get some snow banks in the shade of our house that would last well into June or even July some years. With just a little protection I could get them to last right through to the next winter such that some ice never melted. In mountain ravines I had seen ice in shadows that lasted to deep into the summer - these were built up by running water that froze in layers similar to what your'e describing.

Our on-farm butcher shop is essentially a giant Ice Well. With our butcher shop we built an outer concrete shell that is heavily insulated from the environment. Even the earth is too warm for contact as it floats around 45°F to 50°F and I'm aiming for lower temperatures. This outer shell of the building weighs over a million pounds and will float slightly below that environmental average. Even this summer when it wasn't completely closed in the shell never went over 50°F and inside it was much cooler - an artificial cave.

Inside that shell about 2/3rds of the building is the refrigerated reefer. This is insulated from the shell and close to another half million pounds of masonry. I can suck down the temperature on that large thermal mass with winter cold since it gets down to -20°F most winters for extended periods, sometimes much colder and the night sky is still colder so Dark Panels can dump heat for much of the year. Our winters are long. For Dark Panels see:

http://SugarMtnFarm.com/2011/09/22/t.../#comment-9879

The reefer is further sub-divided into four work and storage rooms each which is thermally isolated and contained within the previous room until you get to the coldest room, the blast freezer. The insulation at that point is about R-100 from the external environment.

In the upper half of the reefer is another isolated area, the coolth attic. It is up above since since heat rises. The coolth attic is where we will put large tanks, about 200,000 more pounds of thermal mass in the form of fluids designed to freeze at specific temperatures. During the the winter we'll chill down those tanks to store winter's cold. The rising heat from the rooms below with appropriate thermal breaks will be soaked up by the coolth in the coolth attic reducing the need for mechanical refrigeration. Dark panels on the roof will radiate heat out to the night sky and the cold of winter.

We are installing compressor based mechanical refrigeration to pull the blast freezer down to very low temperatures year round but all of the winter chilling and isolation of the reefer will help to reduce the need to run that as much which saves energy and money. It is possible that if we sacrifice the extreme blast freezer temperatures for more typical -10°F freezing we could run year round with no mechanical refrigeration. The math says this is possible - time will tell.

Another neat trick about all of this is it means we don't have to have electrical backup power since we have such a high thermal mass. The system will stay cold for long periods without any mechanical refrigeration. We get a lot of power outages - fortunately mostly in the winter when it is cold and refrigeration is free.

This design could be used in any climate to reduce the mechanical refrigeration loads and energy use of a cold storage facility but it works particularly well in our cold climate.

I hadn't heard of the Ice Well design before but what we're doing is basically the same idea on a somewhat more sophisticated level using much more mass and insulation to protect from the warmth of the earth. My goal is to use as little commercial energy for our facility since after labor the energy is the highest operating cost. Labor we have taken care of since we do the work ourselves.

You can see the journey of our butcher shop at:

http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop

Cheers,

-Walter
in Vermont

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Cold air is heavy and if you leave the door open it will rush into the pit and force the warmer air out. That can easily freeze the ground around it even with our 50 degree ground temp.

A contractor told me of digging in a septic system one winter. He said the snow had insulated the yard well and there was only about 6" of frost but when he hit some deer tracks that crossed the yard the frost was 4' deep. On the other side of the tracks the frost was 6" again.

Once you get the gravel coated with ice it will seal and start collecting ice above it. Then in the spring the ground will thaw below and the water will seep through the now melted gravel/ice layer.

I read about a guy who built something similar on the side of his second story house. He ran the refrigerator coils into the block of ice and used it instead of a compressor. His ice block was in a well insulated chamber.

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What I am reading tells me that the Ice House at Monticello was filled with ice. Ice was not made in it.

Mrs Whodunit

There must be something I'm overlooking. I have a well pit about that size, made of four inch concrete, and uninsulated. It never freezes, and it is not supposed to, or I would be out of water all winter long. I've always understood that the ground temperature at the eight foot depth is fifty degrees--thus, a well pit that deep is protected from freezing.......

geo

Geo, you are starting out with a dry pit. You add just a few gallons of water. That will freeze, after it is frozen you add a little more until it freezes, then add again. If you filled it up all at once, like your cistern, it would not freeze.

Mrs Whodunit, I was thinking that Monticello had BOTH ice house and ice well. I'll check tonight.
Back to work, Renee

Up here on raw land people can find square pits dug about half a mile from the major fish rivers. On my land I have found two. They are today about 5 feet deep with years of neglete there is great natual compost that has formed so they must have been deeper once. The Natives living here used them to store fish. I never understood it but this thread makes me think.

This design has merit. I don't think it would get consistently cold enough where I live, but it could work quite well in northern Ohio. The people that object aren't reading the OP's information very well.

The ground in a valley freezes just as far down as the ground on a hill... one simply needs enough air exposure. With enough exposure, it would be the bottom of the pit, not the top that would be "ground level". Freezing 1000 gallons of water at one time is vastly different than freezing 10 gallons of water a day spread over many square feet, for 100 days.

Sure it would work better if the sides and bottom was insulated a bit, but the bottom would still have to be fairly well drained to let the melted water to percolate out. An 8' x 12' block of ice 4' high would last a long time once the door was closed at the top in above freezing weather. It is obvious that the goods to be refrigerated are meant to be lowered into the ice pit in a tub or bucket.

The well pit already has an 80 gallon pressure tank filled with water, so, maybe that's why I would have to be skeptical. Just can't grasp the context. No matter, I really don't want it to freeze.

geo

Geo do you leave your well pit open in the winter so the cold air can get in? With an ice well you leave it open to freeze the water and ground around it and then close it up when it gets warm out. Somebody said you pour 2-4 gallons a day in it though but that wouldnt be nearly enough to make such a large block.

seems like an easy enough concept to grasp. Start with a dry, freezing hole add a small amount of water, it freezes. Repeat daily or even several times daily depending on how cold it is all winter long. You are going to end up with a great deal of ice. I bet you could set a hose on a slow drip and build up ice that way too. I've seen uncapped artisian wells build huge ice towers over the span of a winter.

Cover it in the spring and it would hold ice just like an ice house all summer long. I don't see why it wouldn't work.

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WHODUNIT, I would say that you are right! I re-read the accounts of both Jefferson and Madison's estates and find that they are using both terms "ice house" and "ice well". I didn't realize they were using them interchangeably. It makes sense as the climate in Virginia is mild. Sorry for any confusion. Renee

Highlands, I took a look at your website. You have an impressive operation!

Kasilofhome, if you or someone else makes an ice well I hope you will post the details on this forum.

I suggested to my husband a few years ago that we get a back hoe and dig an ice pit where our valley slopes off to the north. The Amish family next door could build a little house over it and they could use it for refrigeration. It would be available to us also if needed. My only concern would be having a child fall into the pit. Thats why I thought it should have a metal grid inside the pit. Anyway, according to my husband, as long as we have electricity that's not going to happen!

I think there's a difference. Groundwater won't freeze more than a skim in extremely cold weather because it's part of a huge heat sink. A huge mass of ice that isn't connected to that heat sink should freeze and stay frozen for a long time.

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"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

I've often thought you could buy a chest freezer, make ice in it until it's within a foot of the top, insulate the living daylights out of it and turn it off, and use it for a refrigerator for quite awhile. Seems like it would be a gain in the use of energy, but maybe not.

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-Northern NYS

There are ice caves out in the desert of E. Oregon. If you stand in front of them it has a cold wind blowing. Somehow through open lava tubes. Also real cold springs come right out of the sides of mountains. The Deschutes river is just a huge spring, cold cold water. I have a springhouse. I have a spring up above my property and I piped it for household use, a microhydro unit and it runs through the springhouse to cool everything....James