[Greenbuilding] Refrigerator cabinet?

[Bob Korves]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Reuben Deumling" <9watts at gmail.com>
To: "Speireag Alden" <speireag at gmail.com>
Cc: <greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 2:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Refrigerator cabinet?


> Don't miss this effort!
> http://fourmileisland.com/IceBox.htm


Maybe a bit off subject, but I can't resist...

In the book "Ceramic Houses and Earth Architecture -- How to Build Your Own" 
by Nader Khalili is a description of a system for storing ice for year 
around use in the Iranian desert for a whole village.  A tall cob/adobe wall 
is built on a east west line.  A shallow pond is built on the north side of 
the wall.  A couple doorways are built in the middle of the wall and a ramp 
is built on a shallow angle from the doorway into the pond,  The threshold 
of the doorway is only an inch or two above the water level in the pond.  On 
the south side of the wall is a large, insulated, underground storage room 
for storing ice.  When the ice freezes to a useful thickness it is broken 
into pieces that will slide up the ramp, through the door, and down a ramp 
into the storage room.  Huge quantities of ice can be stored in this manner 
with very little labor required.

The rest of the book is also fascinating.  Khalili makes adobe houses and 
then fires them to ceramic from inside, like a pottery kiln, only the kiln 
becomes the house after firing.  More items are fired inside the house at 
the same time, as a kiln.  He has photos of a large ten room elementary 
school building and administration wing that he built in Iran, completely of 
adobe, roof and all, no wood or steel or concrete or other structural 
materials used at all.  Amazingly, the school was built by one man and his 
young son making the adobes and one mason with a part time helper erecting 
the building.  Nubian vaults and squinch and pendentive domes were the roof 
of choice.  The building complex was made with one wheelbarrow, one shovel, 
several buckets and drums and nothing else for tools, not even a trowel. 
They are made only with local mud, local labor, and fired with local oil, 
one room at a time.  About one year of actual building time was required, 
longer start to finish due to war.  Fascinating stuff, and totally green, 
except the oil burning...

http://www.dirtcheapbuilder.com/cehoandeaar.html
-Bob Korves