Feedback On...The Incredible Wood-Burning Refrigerator
January/February 1976
By the Mother Earth News editors
I'm not sure, but I think Dale Degler's going to blow his head off with that wood-burning contraption! (MOTHER NO. 35, pp. 114-115.) These fridges are designed to be used with a small flame. When you hit them with intense heat-such as that of the wood fire you pictured-you're going to boil the water, not only lowering efficiency to the point where the machine won't work, but building up steam pressure in the unit to destructive levels.
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BOOM! Thar' she blows! And the explosion will have an added bonus lots of ammonia, a toxic compound.
H. Hartzog
Bellingham, Wash.
You're right, H . but only partway. The intermittent absorption refrigerator does work. In fact, the "Icy-Ball" model (also mentioned in the article), was a widely used, dependable commercial product. And it was heated by being placed over afire.
However, our illustration of the unit's inner workings was somewhat more poetic than accurate, As you say, nobody should set the ammonia-water pan right next to a giant blaze like the one pictured. Application of heat to a wood-burning
fridge should be gentle and predictable. The whole point of the system, after all, is to boil the ammonia without boiling the water.
The heat-accepting side of an intermittent absorption machine would probably be best kept along the edges of a moderate fire. (It doesn't take a lot of heat to turn the ammonia to vapor, just a steady application of low-level heat. Again, the idea is to warm the pan, not boil the water.)
1 might as well add, too, that no one should experiment with mechanisms such as this unless he or, she really knows what they're all about. Dale Degler-as you'll recall-is a qualified heating and air conditioning technician (even if our artist isn't!). If your experience with refrigeration units more closely parallels that of our artist instead of Dale Degler's background, you'd be well advised to lay back and let the "folks who know" build and test the first intermittent absorption coolers.
