THE PASSING OF THE ICE MAN
“How would you like to be the ice man?” is the lyrical refrain to an
ancient ditty that is getting more and more obsolete every day, for
there is a mechanical conspiracy to oust the ice man from his age-long
position as purveyor to the home. So do ice men, gladiators and dogs
have their day and relinquish to machinery their evanescent glories.
Nowadays everybody knows that there are domestic refrigerating plants
for home use that displace the ice man and in which pure ice for table
use can be made. Many people, however, do not realize the reliability of
such equipment, the simplicity of its operation, and the satisfaction to
be derived from its use, nor yet that there is an actual saving in its
use. These facts will, however, be borne out by thousands who have freed
themselves from the bondage of the ice man.
Even though few will care just what contributes to making the coldness,
it might be well to give a simple explanation of the principle of making
ice, in order that the prospective purchaser will know what she is
getting.
When you wash your hands they feel cool if you do not dry them. You say
they are cool because the water evaporates, but the fact is that the
evaporation takes place because the water is drawing on the heat from
the air and your hands feel cool in the process. And so in simplest
terms engineers have found refrigerants or liquids which vaporize or
evaporate at low temperatures, and as they turn from liquids to gasses
they use up the heat and leave the air cold. Some of these refrigerants
are sulphur dioxide, chloride of ethyl, ammonia, etc.
There are two ways of having refrigeration in the home:
1. The mechanical refrigerator (which is permanently cool with the
machinery a part of itself)--one unit.
2. The domestic refrigerating plant (for making ice and steadily
producing even, low temperatures) which you can have installed in your
own refrigerator--two units.
The general system of home making-ice refrigerators consists of the
brine tank with copper coils within, a motor-driven compressor and a
condenser of copper piping. The compressed liquid passes through an
expansion valve into the brine tank where the pressure is reduced and it
changes into a gas, flows out through and is condensed by the condenser,
changed back into a liquid, is pumped back again by the motor and starts
cycling again--indefinitely. In the best ice-making plants there is a
heat control which turns on the motor when the temperature in the
refrigerator gets too high and turns it off when it is sufficiently low.
In one refrigerator there is a device by which the food compartments are
kept at any temperature you desire, usually around 40°, while the
temperature of the ice-making compartment is never allowed to rise above
20°. By this arrangement it is possible, and very often the case, that
ice will be made in the ice compartment without running the electric
motors for hours, while food is kept in the food compartments at
slightly above freezing point. Fancy the health insurance that the best
ice-less processes guarantee in the home--infant’s food, for example,
can be absolutely fool-proof.
Although the above technical libretto is of some use, the things that
most people want to know and are asking are these:
1. Is ice making at home practical?
2. Is it messy?
3. Can I use my old refrigerator?
4. Are they to be had in a special refrigerator?
5. Will I save money?
6. Will it save time and annoyance?
7. What’s the use anyway?
A good refrigerator is a jewel, and it is the first requisite to be
considered. It must be insulated well enough to keep out hot air and
hold in cold. It must be seamless and smooth in its linings. The air
circulation must be continuous. The temperature inside must never be
higher than an average of 45° and rarely that. In such a refrigerator
one should be able to keep matches dry and butter must never absorb any
of the charm of the onion.
If you have such a refrigerator, keep it by all means, and install the
ice-making machine. The installation is simple, and the initial expense
is readily made up in the future saving of ice consumption. But do not
install an excellent ice machine in a poor refrigerator, as the electric
bills will climb the Alps. Yet even in a poor refrigerator the
refrigeration bills are lower than if you had iced refrigeration.
If you have no refrigerator, it is possible to buy a refrigerator which
has in it the ice-making machines. But before you buy the outfit you
must be very careful to know whether this refrigerator comes up to the
most stringent tests of the ordinary first-class refrigerator, for this
reason: The average refrigerator in which ice is used has to be
efficient because it must keep itself dry with actual ice evaporation
going on, it must keep a cold chest with an actual diminishing ice
supply, it must keep ice melting yet staying in spite of weather and
surrounding atmosphere. To make the circulation of air effect these
processes a refrigerator requires fine construction.
The refrigerating manufacturers have put the most superb effort into
making a first-class refrigerator, and if you are not convinced that the
combination outfit has as good a refrigerator as you can get with the
installed outfit, it is wisest to buy the refrigerator and install the
ice-making machine. There are excellent refrigerators on the market;
apply rigid tests and accept nothing short of the best.
The machinery can, in some instances, be put on top of the refrigerator
or in the cellar or in the next room or right next to the refrigerator.
In some cases the machine, consisting of pump and condenser and motor,
takes up no more room than 1¹⁄₂′ × 1¹⁄₄′ × 3¹⁄₂′. This can be put in
place as simply as installing a new gas stove.
In the best of the iceless machines the refrigerator maintains a lower
temperature than the iced ones in both winter and summer. At a cost of
ten cents per kilowatt hour, and with ice at fifty cents per hundred
pounds, it is cheaper per day to use the iceless refrigerator.
There is, too, less dampness in the iceless refrigerator than even in
the best iced ones, due, of course, to the absence of the ice itself.
This lower percentage of humidity should not be taken as a reflection on
the low percentage of humidity that can be maintained by the iced
refrigerator of the best make, which is a percentage low enough to dry
towels and keep matches dry.
The iceless refrigerator does these things:
1. Reduces the cost of refrigeration.
2. Maintains a constant low temperature regardless of weather and
automatically starts up “cold making” when you raise the temperature
by opening the doors.
3. Operates automatically when once installed and is reliable, clean
and noiseless.
4. Permits you to make neat little cubes of ice for your tumblers,
which give your table distinction.
5. Gives you ice of which you know the clean source.
6. Operates by electricity.
7. Needs no refrigerant for years.
8. Is oiled very seldom.
9. Is easily kept clean.
10. Obviates the uncertain ice man and his dirty boots trailed across
the kitchen floor.
11. There is no ice-box drain to clean, no water dripping to worry
about and therefore no extra effort.
12. Consumes from 1¹⁄₂ to 2 kilowatt hours per day--if it is run from
6 to 8 hours per day.
The purchaser of an ice-making refrigerator or a domestic refrigerating
plant should be warned of the following:
1. A poor refrigerator will mean more electricity to keep up a
sufficiently low temperature.
2. Don’t let a manufacturer tell you that a freezing refrigerant, such
as sulphur dioxide, will escape and corrode the pipes. It has been
tested out and in the best machines has neither escaped nor worn out
its pipings.
3. Remember that opening and closing doors raises the temperature even
in the magic iceless paradise, and therefore uses more electric power
to keep the temperature down.
4. The best machines maintain the ideal and theoretical low
temperature.
5. Expect service from the manufacturer.
6. It is best to have the gas air-cooled and not water-cooled because
the introduction of water makes for the confraternity of gas and
water--a troublesome mess.
7. Demand the temperature-controlling automatic device which starts
the refrigerating when the temperature gets up around 39°, and cuts it
off when the temperature is low enough to do its work. This saves
electricity and wear and tear on the machine.
Some iceless refrigerators make little cubes of ice by putting trays of
your favorite drinking water into the brine tank compartments. In these
the temperature ranges from 20° to 27°. Desserts, too, can be frozen
firmly and surely when placed in these trays.
The brine tank fits easily into the ice compartment of the well-made
refrigerator. The brine tank, compressor, condensor and pump come in
three sizes, corresponding to an efficiency of making two hundred, three
hundred, four hundred pounds of ice per day. Actually these three
typical sizes of refrigerators can only store ice to the amounts of one
hundred and fifty, two hundred and three hundred pounds, a difference
being allowed for melting.
The condensor, compressor and motor of some types of ice machines do not
take up any more space than that of 30″ × 16″ × 18″ high. This can be
installed anywhere.
When ordering an ice-maker for your home refrigerator, it is well to
measure its interior, regardless of its compartments. Get the width,
depth and height, and multiply them together. This gives the cubical
contents and the manufacturer can then estimate as to the cost and size
plant that you need.
At five cents per kilowatt the cost per day of running an entire kitchen
by electricity is but fifty cents. Compare this to the cost of motoring
per day.