refrigeration

19 years ago

I've read of various ways of improving the economics of using a fridge; removing the refridgerant part (tubing) and emmerse in water but then the water needs constant changing since the heat is dissipated into the water thus heating the water causing a constant loss of effencency. Also read of the need to well ventilate the rear of the fridge (where the heat from within the fridge is released to the surrounding envirnoment). And attempting to purchase a fridge with the compressor on the top (rather than underneath) for better ventilation again and that way the heat doesn't rise past the very same box your are attempting to keep cool but $$$$.

I've worked out most of the items I feel are needed for one to live; building my own shelter ...a house :),removal of ones body waste (bucket and compost or compost toliet), food growth (always looking for new long term fruits and heirloom type veggies), cooking (wood and solar stove) and food storage (canning, drying,with a though on building a root cellar though that may not be practical here in the deep south) a water supply (have an electric pumped well now with a solar pump planned as soon as this one fails), winter warmth (wood burning stove using a coppiced oak lot), solar water heating with dreams of solar electric and so forth. Its the cold storage that has me stumpted. Now I know its not a must have to survive but tell that to my wife ;> Any thoughts would be most welcome.

Mike

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Comments (3)

shaxhome (Frog Rock, Australia 9b)
19 years ago
Mike,
I have almost all the comforts you describe...wood heater, solar hot water, solar electricity, organic (mainly heirlooms) veggie patch and orchard etc....

BUT, I finally bought a small electric "bar-fridge" that runs from my solar electricity. Refrigeration is a necessity for me in our 100F+ summers, and originally I did buy a 2nd hand, full sized LPG refrigerator for $900!!! Stopped working and I was quoted another $900 to re-gas it...and I still had to buy the LPG quite frequently.

Just my experience...

Regards,
Shax
lilacfarm
19 years ago
We've been on our homestead for going on 3 decades, now. At first, we just had a 4' cube dug into the earth from the kitchen side of our earthsheltered home. We used an old 'ice box' wooden door for the closure.

We later dug out the kitchen side of the house and built a 6'X14' room on...buried it as well, but snaked 4 inch plastic pipe through about 40 feet of earth and coupled it to the bottom of the room. Added a 4" vent pipe at the top of the room. The attached pantry stays 40 degrees or so in the depths of winter and will go as high as 55 degrees in late summer. That would be adequate with most vegetarian lifestyles.

We are spoiled now. In 1998 we purchased a 12 volt 16 cu foot SunFrost Refrig/Freezer. It was a big buck item, but we've never regretted it. Its power draw is miniscule for its size, even less than the company suggested.
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sleepybee
19 years ago
Hi Mike,

Just an idea I'm rolling around in my head for myself. What about a solar fridge. The technology is simple. You just have to build it yourself. Basicly you have a sealed system, at one end you have a sealed tube with road salt saturated with ammonia. You heat this end up in a solar dish and drive off the ammonia as a gas. The gas travels down a tube to a simple condenser and as it condenses it drips into a small storage tank. At night the salt end cools and wants to suck all the ammonia back, creating a vacuum in the system. This vacuum causes the liquid ammonia in the storage tank to vaporize and flow back to resaturate the rock salt until tomorrow morning. The cool part is that as the ammonia evaporates it sucks in huge amounts of heat, freezing everything around it. Including any bags or buckets of water. If I remember correctly I think the system will produce about 1 gallon of ice for every 10 square feet of collector. 1 gallon of Ice a day should keep a fridge cool.

The condenser is esentially a tank of water with a copper tube running through it, so all the heat given off to condense the ammonia will give you a nice warm tank of water at the end of the day.

Ice and hot water every day. No moving parts. No electricity. Completely self contained and completely solar powered. The same principle as an LPG fridge.

This article is a bit lengthy but the first page describes the process: http://www.cibse.org/pdfs/development.pdf

And although I've never read this book, I think it contains some useful unformation: http://www.knowledgepublications.com/nuenergyorg_sunshinebook.htm

Hope this helps, Sleepybee