64 
House & Garden 
THE PASSING OF THE ICE MAN 
In This Survey of Home Refrigeration Are the Salient Facts for 
Purchasers of Iceless Systems 
“y y OW would you like to be the ice 
XT. man?” is the lyrical refrain to an 
ancient ditty that is getting more and 
more obsolete every day, for there is a mechan¬ 
ical conspiracy to oust the ice man from his 
age-long position as purveyor to the home. So 
do ice men, gladiators and dogs have their 
day and- relinquish to machinery their evanes¬ 
cent glories. 
Nowadays everyone knows that there are 
domestic refrigerating plants for home use that 
displace the ice man and in which pure ice 
for table use can be made. Many people, how¬ 
ever, do not realize the reliability of such 
equipment, the simplicity of its operation, and 
the satisfaction to be derived from its use, nor 
yet that there is an actual saving in its use. 
These facts will, however, be borne out by 
thousands who have freed themselves from the 
bondage of the ice man. 
Even though few will care just what con¬ 
tributes to making the coldness, it might be 
well to give a simple explanation of the prin¬ 
ciple of making ice, in order that the prospec¬ 
tive purchaser will know what she is getting. 
When we wash our hands they feel cool if 
we do not dry them. We say they are cool 
because the water evaporates, but the fact is 
that the evaporation takes place because the 
water is drawing on the heat from the air and 
our hands feel cool in the process. And so 
in simplest terms engineers have found refrig¬ 
erants or liquids which vaporize or evaporate 
at low temperatures, and as they turn from 
liquids to gases they use up the heat and leave 
the air cold. Some of these refrigerants are 
sulphur dioxide, chloride of ethyl, ammonia, 
etc. 
There are two ways of having refrigeration 
in the home: 
1. The mechanical refrigerator (which is 
permanently cool with the machinery a part 
of itself)—one unit. 
2. The domestic refrigerating plant (for 
making ice and steadily producing even, low 
temperatures) which you can have installed 
in your own refrigerator—two units. 
The general system of home making-ice 
refrigerators consists of the brine tank with 
copper coils within, a motor driven compressor 
and a condenser of copper piping. The com¬ 
pressed liquid passes through an expansion 
valve into the brine tank where the pressure 
is reduced and it changes into a gas, flows out 
through and is condensed by the condenser, 
changed back into a liquid, is pumped back 
again by the motor and starts its cycling again 
—indefinitely. In the best ice-making plants 
there is a heat control which turns on the motor 
when the temperature in the refrigerator gets 
too high and turns it off when it is sufficiently 
low. 
In one refrigerator there is a device by which 
the food compartments are kept at any tem¬ 
perature you desire, usually around 40°, while 
ETHEL R. PEYSER 
the temperature of the ice-making compartment 
is never allowed to rise above 20°. By this 
arrangement it is possible, and very often the 
case, that ice will be made in the ice compart¬ 
ment without running the electric motors for 
hours, while food is kept in the food compart¬ 
ments at slightly above freezing point. Fancy 
the health insurance that the best ice-less 
processes guarantee in the home—infant’s 
food, for example, can be absolutely fool¬ 
proof. 
A LTHOUGH the above technical libretto 
is of some use, the things that most 
people want to know and are asking are 
these: 
1. Is ice making at home practical? 
2. Is it messy? 
3. Can I use my old refrigerator? 
4. Are they to be had in a special refrig¬ 
erator ? 
S. Will I save money? 
6. Will it save time and annoyance? 
7. What’s the use anyway? 
A good refrigerator is a jewel, and it is the 
first requisite to be considered. It must be 
insulated well enough to keep out hot air and 
hold in cold. It must be seamless and smooth 
in its linings. The air circulation must be 
continuous. The temperature inside must 
never be higher than an average of 45° and 
rarely that. In such a refrigerator one should 
be able to keep matches dry and butter must 
never absorb any of the charm of the onion. 
If you have such a refrigerator, keep it by 
all means, and install the ice-making machine. 
The installation is simple, and the initial ex¬ 
pense is readily made up in the future saving 
of ice consumption. But do not install an 
excellent ice machine in a poor refrigerator, as 
the electric bills will climb the Alps. Yet even 
in a poor refrigerator the refrigeration bills 
are lower than if you had iced refrigeration. 
If you have no refrigerator, it is possible to 
buy a refrigerator which has in it the ice-mak¬ 
ing machines. But before you buy the outfit 
you must be very careful to know whether this 
refrigerator comes up to the most stringent 
tests of the ordinary first-class refrigerator, for 
this reason: The average refrigerator in which 
ice is used has to be efficient because it must 
keep itself dry with actual ice evaporation go¬ 
ing on, it must keep a cold chest with an actual 
diminishing ice supply, it must keep ice melt¬ 
ing yet staying in spite of weather and sur¬ 
rounding atmosphere. To make the circula¬ 
tion of air effect these processes a refrigerator 
requires fine construction. 
T HE refrigerating manufacturers have 
put the most superb effort into making a 
first-class refrigerator, and if you are 
not convinced that the combination outfit has 
as good a refrigerator as you can get with the 
installed outfit, it is wisest to buy the refrig¬ 
erator and install the ice-making machine. 
There are excellent refrigerators on the mar¬ 
ket; apply rigid tests and accept nothing short 
of the best. 
The machinery can, in some instances, be 
put on top of the refrigerator or in the cellar 
or in the next room or right next to the refrig¬ 
erator. In some cases the machine, consisting 
of pump and condenser and motor, takes up 
no more room than 1 Yz x \yf x 3)4'- This 
can be put in place as simply as installing a 
new gas stove. 
In the best of the iceless machines the re¬ 
frigerator maintains a lower temperature than 
the iced ones in both winter and summer. At 
a cost of ten cents per kilowatt hour, and with 
ice at fifty cents per hundred pounds, it is 
cheaper per day to use the iceless refrigerator. 
There is, too, less dampness in the iceless 
refrigerator than even in the best iced ones, 
due, of course, to the absence of the ice itself. 
This lower percentage of humidity should not 
be taken as a reflection on the low percentage 
of humidity that can be maintained by the 
iced refrigerator of the best make, which is a 
percentage low enough to dry towels and keep 
matches dry. 
The iceless refrigerat does these things: 
1. Reduces the cost of refrigeration. 
2. Maintains a constant low temperature 
regardless of weather, and automatically starts 
up “cold making” when you raise the temper¬ 
ature by opening the doors. 
3. Operates automatically when once in¬ 
stalled and is reliable, clean and noiseless. 
4. Permits you to make neat little cubes of 
ice for your tumblers, which give your table 
distinction. 
5. Gives you ice of which you know the 
clean source. 
6. Operates by electricity. 
7. Needs no refrigerant for years. 
8. Is oiled very seldom. 
9. Is easily kept clean. 
10. Obviates the uncertain ice man and 
his dirty boots trailed across the kitchen floor. 
11. There is no ice box drain to clean, no 
water drippings to worry about and therefore 
no extra effort. 
12. Consumes from 1 j /2 to 2 kilowatt 
hours per day—if it is run from 6 to 8 hours 
per day. 
The purchaser of an ice-making refrigerator 
or a domestic refrigerating plant should be 
warned of the following: 
1. A poor refrigerator will mean more 
electricity to keep up a sufficiently low 
temperature. 
2. Don’t let a manufacturer tell you that 
a freezing refrigerant, such as sulphur dioxide, 
will escape and corrode the pipes. It has been 
tested out and in the best machines has neither 
escaped nor worn out its pipings. 
3. Rememberthat opening and closing doors 
(Continued on page 76) 
