Feedback on Building an Icehouse
(Page 2 of 2)
January/February 1973
By the Mother Earth News editors
Icehouses, of course, weren't built the same way in all parts of the country. After seeing one that was typical of this area and getting some reliable descriptions from an old-timer, I think I have a pretty good picture of how they constructed the buildings around here.
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In this region, icehouses were built so that everything but the roof was underground. A cylindrical hole was dug in the earth, possibly 10 feet deep and 25 feet in diameter in the case of the structure I saw (unfortunately I didn't measure . . . and I didn't see the floor, so I don't know whether it was earth or stone). This hole was walled up around the sides with field stone, Then a rather steep conical roof (with a door) was built over it, so that from the outside all one could see was this top part apparently sitting on the ground. I assume that there was a drain to take care of the melt . . . one could easily have been run out of the building I looked at, since it was located at the beginning of a slope.
When ice-harvesting time came, one would put a layer of straw on the floor, then a layer of ice a few feet thick . . . and so on in alternating tiers until the "well" was full, or nearly so. Then the ice was covered with straw.
Why the straw between the layers? Because under pressure ice tends to melt, and then freeze together if there is a slight heat transfer. The owners surely didn't want the whole business to become one big slid iceberg.
It immediately struck me that the builders missed a good thing when they failed to insulate the roof. I've heard the complaint that such icehouses seldom kept ice until the next winter . . . and since the ground is a fair insulator, I imagine that most of the heat conduction came through that simple pine-shingle covering.
C.D. Prewitt
Mt. Sterling, Ky.
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