BUILDING ICE HOUSES 



SELECTION OF SITE AND GENERAL RULES OF CONSTRUCTION. 



IT is not too early to think of the ice 

 crop to be stored next February, 

 and to plan for a proper house in 

 which to keep it. A correspondent of the 

 Michigan Farmer gives some good plans for 

 the building of a house to hold fifty tons. 

 It is built as near the water's edge as se- 



bank. Air cannot enter so readily 'at the 

 base on the bank side as on the other. 



As the ice melts in warm weather, which 

 it surely will to some extent, the packing is 

 loosened, and, unless the base is very snug, 

 air will enter and find its way upward, car- 

 rying heat to the ice. Cheaply constructed 



Fig. 2718. Ice Houses, (i) Bank Ice House: (2) Ground Plan ; 

 (3) A Cheap Ice House; (4) Ground Plan ok Same. 



The site 



curity from flooding will permit 

 chosen is a bank of moderate slant, and it 

 has been found to have at least two advan- 

 tages over a level location. Unloading from 

 the upper side, much hand labor is avoided 

 in elevating the ice ; it has also been found 

 that ice keeps much better on the side next 

 the bank. Sometimes, in preparing the 

 building for refilling, several cakes of old 

 ice are found — ^^alwavs on the side next the 



as are most ice houses, the base generally is 

 not air-tight. An effort to make it so is 

 made by tramping sawdust tightly inside, but 

 this does not -exclude air so well or so sure- 

 ly as the setting of the building a few feet in 

 the earth. 



This requires that the foundation be 

 either naturally or artificially drained. A 

 coarse gravel bottom will drain water off. 

 but a tight subsoil requires artificial drain- 



