ICE HOUSES AND 



50 cubic feet of space a ton, depending upon the size, thick- 

 ness and care with which it is placed and packed. For a herd 

 of thirty cows, where the cream alone is to be cooled, storage 

 for fifteen tons of ice, plus five tons for household use, or a 

 total of 20 tons, would be required. This amount of ice 

 would occupy a volume of 800 cubic feet, and might easily 

 be stored in a house 10x10x10 feet, the extra 200 cubic feet 

 being taken up by insulating material. 



Ice is a very perishable product, requiring an especially 

 well insulated building for its preservation. Of all the prac- 

 tical shapes in which an ice house might be built a cube rep- 

 resents the greatest volume with the least exposed surface. 

 In building an ice house a shape as near this as possible 

 should be used. Advantage should be taken of any natural 

 shade or shelter, and good drainage should be provided, for 

 without it good insulation is impossible. In order that the 

 greatest amount of use be made of the ice-house it should be 

 convenient to the house and dairy. 



PROPER INSULATION SAVES MONEY. 



Insulation is the most important feature in ice-house 

 construction, for upon it depends the keeping of the ice. As 

 it is the most expensive part of the building, great care 

 should be exercised in the choice of material and the placing 

 of it. It is almost impossible to give any fixed value to dif- 

 ferent classes of insulating material because so much de- 

 pends upon the care and method of using them. 



In building an ice-house the problem is to minimize the 

 passage of heat from the outer to the inner wall. There is 

 no material known that will entirely prevent the passage of 

 heat, but there are some materials through which it passes 

 very slowly, and these are called insulators or non-conduct- 

 ors. Air permanently confined in a dead space is the ideal 

 insulator. It was considered good practice at one time to in- 

 corporate these so-called dead air spaces in the walls of ice- 

 houses, and much time and money has been spent building 

 air space after air space of widths varying from three to 

 twelve inches, only to find that they are not satisfactory. It 

 has been found that an air space of % inch is as effective as 

 one of greater width. As a rule, continuous air spaces do 

 not pay for the cost of material and labor put into the build- 

 ing of them, because workmen do not ordinarily exercise the 



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