THI-; HOUSE AND ITS ICOUIPMENT. 93 



REFRIGERATION 



Main Uses of Refrigerating I lmit -Ice-making Cold Storage for Food -Compression System 



Description of I lant mitt Insulation. 



A \KFRI( iKRA n\(i machine is a tiling which owners of country houses, perhaps, seldom consider 

 as being suitable to their own special requirements, yet there are certainly a very large 

 number of houses in the. country in which such a plant would be a most valuable adjunct. It 

 may be said that in practically every house a considerable quantity of ice is employed in one 

 way or another for preserving provisions and i -ing drinks. The fact that ice is used demon 

 strates the necessity of producing &quot; cold &quot; by some means or other ; and once this fact is established, it 

 only remains to point out the great superiority of mechanical refrigeration over cooling by means of ice. 

 Where ice is use:! for preserving provisions, it is difficult to keep them fresh and at the &amp;gt;ame time dry for 

 any length of time, as the atmosphere created in the ice safe, or refrigerator, is extremely damp and tin- 

 temperature cannot be controlled. With mechanical refrigeration, on the other hand, eatables, such as 

 meat, poultry, game, vegetables, fruit, dairy produce and the like, may be maintained at any desired 

 temperature, and thus preserved dry and in perfectly good condition for pra- tically any period ; and the 

 house is entirely independent of any outside source of supply for ice, the result being a very considerable 

 saving of expense. 



What ice is required for placing in butter-dishes, cooling drinks and other purposes can be made 

 with the same machine. In this connection a question of health is very often also involved. The ice is 

 made from the water used for the regular drinking supply of the house, whereas the origin of bought ice 

 is unknown. One of the large London hospitals, indeed, lately was sufficiently interested to analyse 

 some ice which had been bought, and the result of the examination caused the authorities to congratulate 

 themselves on the possession of a refrigerating machine by means of which they were able to produce their 

 own ice. 



There are three main uses to which mechanical refrigeration may be put in a country house : 

 First, there is cold storage for use in connection with the house larder where various classes of food can In- 

 kept and sufficient ice made to meet the demands of the house for this purpose some sort of cold must 

 be employed, and where there is no refrigerating machine ice is used ; secondly, there is the storage of 

 game, where mechanical refrigeration is the only feasible method, as a store containing the bag of a large 

 shoot cannot be maintained at a sufficiently low temperature for long storage by means ot ice. A store 

 of this sort on a sporting estate can be used both for holding over the bag of a shoot till it is convenient 

 to dispose of it, and for the long storage of game to be used in the house itself. The third use to which 

 refrigeration can be put on a country estate, namely, in dairy-work, is a subject by itself. Here refrigera 

 tion is not only used for the storage of milk, but also for cooling it when the milk is pasteurised or treated 

 in some such way. When one considers all these advantages of mechanical refrigeration over the use 

 of ice, and the many purposes for which it can be used, it may seem curious that this class of machinery 

 is not more often installed in country houses. The reason probably is that people are apt to think ot 

 cold storage by means of mechanical refrigeration as something to be done on a large scale only, as they 

 are familiar with large cold-storage establishments with powerful refrigerating machines, or with the large 

 installations on board first-class liners. Refrigerating machines, however, are also made in quite small 

 sizes entirely suitable for the needs of the country house, and can be worked by a small electric motor 

 wherever electric power is available, or by a small gas, oil or petrol engine. Such machinery requires very 

 little attention, and can be looked after by a person who has other duties to perform ; for instance, one 

 plant in a certain country house has been for two years run and looked after by the laundress. It is 

 only necessary when the machine is working to look at it quite occasionally to see that all is going well, 

 and the stores required are very few and extremely cheap. 



Another objection&quot; which may also arise is, perhaps, the thought that it may be necessary to erect 

 a special building to contain the cold stores and the machinery ; but any space or unused rooms 

 in the house can be easily converted into a cold store, and, indeed, a plan is given of a plant 

 installed at More ton Hall in Warwickshire, showing how conveniently a plant can be arranged 

 in three existing rooms. Any refrigerating machine can be used for each of the three purposes 

 mentioned, the only variation being in the design of the machine and the manner in which the cold 

 produced is applied. 



