My apologies if this is badly filed as it could fit in either here or food storage...
I got an idea last night for an ice cellar, so I figured I post it here, so you guys could tell me why it wouldn't work or how it was actually thought of decades ago...
Here is the idea:
Idea: Insulate a Land-Sea container with
straw bales and then slide Frozen IBCs inside with food to provide long term cold storage.
Dimensions of Land-sea container:
19'4"'L × 7'8"W × 7'10"H
232"L × 92"W × 94"H
Dimensions of hay bale:
Height 15 inches and width 20. There's no set size on the length.
Or the straw bale house people say:14" x 36" x 18"
Dimensions of an 275 gallon IBC container:
48"D x 40"W x 46"H
So 92-40 = 52" wide max, so a bail on each side leaving a 52" wide area for storage
94-46= 48" max height, so two above, one below for 45" leaving 49" high area for storage. So IBCs with 3" extra for wheels.
232-40" = 192, so space for 4 IBC tanks to roll/slide in
So if you take a 20' container and line the walls floor and a double layer on the ceiling with straw bales, you will be left with a volume in the middle that will fit 4 IBC containers.
The hardest part is figuring out how or if bales can be attached to the front doors, so that they move with the doors, or do you have to stack the bales before closing the doors.
You will need to build a ridiculously sturdy rack above the bottom bales inside that volume to support possibly 4 tons of
water plus a measure of safety.
If you modify an IBC container so that the drain bungs are replaced with flush plugs, you
should be able to put in about 250 gallons of water, which if left outside in a suitable winter will freeze into a nice 2000 lb block of ice.
Then before it gets warm, you then slide the IBC(s) onto a trailer with a suitable deck height, bring it(them) to the container and slide them inside and close up the container.
This could be made easier by either mounting many small wheels on the bottom of the IBC or using metal rails or maybe just a smooth waxed slab of
wood.
Possibly adding a method of locking the end of the trailer to the support rack inside the container would be a good safety measure during extraction or insertion.
Depending on the heat of your summers, or the possibility of adding additional insulation to the outside of the container (partial burial, adding support for full burial, shading with
trees, burying in more straw, etc.), you could then have "free" cold storage, by placing one to three frozen IBCs inside the container and then sliding in one to three pallet loads of items for cold storage all summer long.
The problems I see are dealing with the condensation coming off the frozen IBCs to make sure it doesn't wet the bales and the logistics of moving a 2000 lbs block of ice or tank of water in and out of the container and around your property.
The solution to the former is probably just building in a drainage channel into the support rack to channel the water away from the bales, but there may also be some condensation on the inside of the container wetting the outside of the bales.
The other solution is to bag each of the bales, or create an air tight-ish chamber around the central chamber.
The solution to the later is a properly designed container rack, trailer and storage racks. Figure out the best way to move the frozen or liquid mass (rollers/slides/rails, maybe a used pallet jack) inside the container and then include the same system on the trailer and storage racks, and include a way to lock the trailer to each to prevent separation during movement.
It is also possible that the IBCs don't have to be moved at all, if leaving the doors open will allow them to freeze completely in place in the container.
Heck with some logistical preparation, a frozen IBC and a fan could be used for air conditioning a home.
Of
course none of this works if the IBC bursts when it freezes.
Richard Hauser