[Bleep]

This product is for large systems not personal refrigerators but maybe personal deep freezers.

http://www.freeaire.com/

If you know any eco-friendly stores it would help to direct their attention to it.

[Bas]

I used to live near a castle which had a manmade cave in the nearby hills; in the winter they would stash the place with ice and then lock the cave with some heavy doors, result: a big natural fridge. Ofcourse this year hasn't seen any ice in this country (Holland) and I suspect that will only get worse

[Bleep]

I was thinking that computer rooms and data centers might be able to use this too.

[IslandCrow]

When planning houses or remodeling then we (in colder climates) need to think about adding the old fashioned pantries, that have air vents outside.

The house I recently bought has a cupboard in the kitchen with two air vents (top and bottom), in the north-east corner of the room. Even with vents totally closed, at the recent cold spell it was 0 C on the floor (by one vent) and about 7 C on the middle shelves. I haven't measured it in summer, but with the vents open it is quite cool.

When powerdown forces the fridge to be shut off (ie. due to power cuts) the pantry will be an important part of the house. If it gets really hot then fresh produce will be stood in a basin of water, with a wet cloth over them, in the pantry.

[Ludi]

One of my (probably not to be realised) plans is to build a superinsulated wellhouse through which I'll pipe the cold (50-odd degree) well water to provide year-round cooling.

Of course the old ice houses of the past were a great idea, but maybe not practical in this age of global warming..

[Bleep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'O')ne of my (probably not to be realised) plans is to build a superinsulated wellhouse through which I'll pipe the cold (50-odd degree) well water to provide year-round cooling.

[killJOY]

Winter cooling is simple!

Got a room? a pantry? a hallway?

Put all your food in there, close the door.

We're lucky enough to have a walk-in pantry. We unload our fridge into the pantry in October/November and have FREE COOLING for five to six months.

If temps rise, we have a plastic cooler in there that we put milk, etc, into then just take some plastic cooler blocks out of the freezer in the cellar and stuff them into the cooler.

We have to watch that stuff doesn't freeze: that's easy: keep a thermometer in the room and open the door a crack if it's too cold.

Think of the hundreds of dollars we've saved over the years....

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bleep', '
')You mean like this? http://www.groundloop.com/

[frankthetank]

I put food in my garage...mid 30's in there right now. Good place to cool down hot foods, free energy, or should i say and energy sink.

[frankthetank]

Ludi-

Have you ever measured the temp of your well water. Even my shallow well of 60ft has a temp of 52.5F as of yesterday (using a cooking thermometer). I would think yours would be warmer down there in TX, but its probably a lot deeper then mine. Its strange, because i would think mine would be colder being as its not that deep and snowcover was almost nonexistant up until a month ago. I'm thinking about using it as a heat source when the power goes out, i just haven't figured what to do with the "used" water...dumb to send it down the drain and back into the Mississippi...

[TorrKing]

If you pile a lot of sawdust on your stack of ice, it will keep very long into the summer. As mentioned, a cave would be good too. Maybe a combination?

[lateStarter]

Most of the homes outside the cities here in Poland have a 'chłodnia' for storage of food (mostly root crops) through the winter. If you are driving by in your car and look in the yards, you will see what looks like a big bump or mound. They are mostly below ground walk in fridges. I guess they are the equivalent of what some refer to as a 'root-cellar'. My wife said we will need one too...

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'L')udi-

Have you ever measured the temp of your well water. Even my shallow well of 60ft has a temp of 52.5F as of yesterday (using a cooking thermometer). I would think yours would be warmer down there in TX, but its probably a lot deeper then mine. Its strange, because i would think mine would be colder being as its not that deep and snowcover was almost nonexistant up until a month ago. I'm thinking about using it as a heat source when the power goes out, i just haven't figured what to do with the "used" water...dumb to send it down the drain and back into the Mississippi...

[RonMN]

14% sawdust (by weight) and
86% water (by weight) makes "pikecrete"...it'll stay frozen for a LONG LONG time.

[WisJim]

Some ideas that I have either tried myself, or personally know folks who do:
Outside air vent to interior of refrigerator to cool food when it is colder outside than the inside of fridge. (may be easiest in a homebuilt refrigerator)

Heat pipes to transfer "coolth" into refrig (Sunfrost made some prototypes like this at one time, but there was no market)http://www.sunfrost.com/passive_refrig.html

Ice house built into north side of house, filled with freezing water in winter to provide refrigeration in summer.

Ice chests moved to colder/warmer areas as necessary to maintain desired temp.

"New Shelter" magazine (defunct, once published by Rodale press), had articles on the subject back in the 1970s or 80s that I should dig out again.

[kjmclark]

The book "Root Cellaring" by Mike and Nancy Bubel is excellent. It covers various forms of root cellars, what crops do well in root cellars, how to store the crops, things to look out for, etc. We sealed off a portion of our basement pantry, insulated some of the walls (not the concrete walls), and put in two six inch ducts. One duct goes from the north-facing back yard to the bottom of the root cellar. The other goes from the top of the root cellar to the unheated garage. I put a damper in the input duct and duct fans in both ducts. I connected the duct fans to a cheap thermostat and to an old solid-state switch I bought years ago. It's funny, I only found one programmable thermostat that would go down to 35F and it was a cheap one.

For November and December, I had the thermostat and fans on a timer to turn on at night if the temperature wasn't low enough. About mid-January it got down to 40F, which was cold enough for our purposes, and I unplugged the fans. I had to close the intake duct in February, when it finally got cold here. Since three sides of the root cellar are concrete, I expect it to stay cold for a while into the spring.

The room that the root cellar is in also got cool, which is fine, since it's our pantry and my work room. I re-sealed the door into the room and now that room stays around 50F, which is great for our remaining squash, and we can heat up the rest of the basement when we want. We lost a few squash before we realized the root cellar was too cold for them, but we haven't lost any of our potatoes or onions in the root cellar. I still miss all of the Bok Choy that rotted because I kept them too enclosed in a too-warm root cellar.