# Ice house illumination?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 15, 2023, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584 "2023-06-15T20:55:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2023, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/21 "2023-06-21T13:49:01Z")
When did carbide lanterns, such as miners used, come into common use? Those were SteamPunk headlamps, basically.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2023, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/22 "2023-06-21T14:29:04Z")
Wikipedia says the first patents for such lamps date to the turn of the 20th century.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2023, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/23 "2023-06-21T14:43:19Z")
[Smithsonian says the first patent for a carbide lamp was in 1900.](https://www.si.edu/spotlight/mining-lights-and-hats/carbide-lamps) Prior to that oil wick lamps and candles were used. Interesting it says carbide lamps produced no carbon monoxide, I sorta recall carbide reacting with water was somewhat smelly though. Apparently by 1918 electric lamps had largely replaced carbide. I assume electrical lighting in ice houses preceded the carbide era.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/24 "2023-06-22T13:50:23Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#):
>
> Well . . right. I just wondered if it was impractical to store ice and have it last through the entire summer into fall, in places like the midwest where it routinely pegs above 90F for weeks at a time and never drops below 80F at night. September is oftentimes no slouch for high temperatures either. The Ice House here in the Cedar Valley is reasonably well constructed of hollow brick and built in 1921 said to hold 6,000 to 8,000 tons of ice.
No matter how hot it gets and how long you want it to last, there’s some quantity of ice that will last that long. So you get that quantity.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/25 "2023-06-22T13:55:00Z")
Someone upthread linked to a twenty-year-old book about [Frederic Tudor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Tudor), an American who was big in the ice trade. The Wikipedia article describes how he sent ice from Massachusetts to India and Hong Kong. One voyage to India took four months. The ship started with 180 tons of ice but landed with 100 tons. So I assume some ice would also survive in the summer in an ice house.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/26 "2023-06-22T14:22:07Z")
Ice survives in geologic structures in North America throughout the summer – something that might have given inspiration to early ice house builders. I myself have seen (and felt) this. At Polar Caves in New Hampshire – still a tourist attraction – the ice remained into the summer in the deepest caves (and also gave its name to the attraction). In the deepest part of Letchworth canyon in New York, in Letchworth State Park, large quantities of ice remain at the base into the , even though it’s not enclosed as in Polar Caves. It’s protected by the canyon walls from direct sunlight.
> **[Polar Caves Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Caves_Park)**
>
> Polar Caves Park is a set of glacially-formed caves located in New Hampshire's White Mountains region, in the United States. The caves were formed during the last ice age from granite boulders and are so named because the deepest cave is cold enough to allow snow to linger long into the summer.
> The caves are a popular tourist destination. The park contains nine granite boulder caves connected by a series of boardwalks, a giant boulder maze, an animal park with European fallow deer and ducks, and...
> **[Letchworth State Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letchworth_State_Park)**
>
> Letchworth State Park is a 14,427-acre (5,838 ha) New York State Park located in Livingston County and Wyoming County in the western part of the State of New York. The park is roughly 17 miles (27 km) long, following the course of the Genesee River as it flows north through a deep gorge and over several large waterfalls. It is located 35 miles (56 km) southwest of Rochester and 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Buffalo, and spans portions of the Livingston County towns of Leicester, Mount Mo In 185...
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/27 "2023-06-22T15:48:27Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> One voyage to India took four months. The ship started with 180 tons of ice but landed with 100 tons.
80 tons of chilled drinking water for the voyage, though.
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### Author:  [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/28 "2023-06-22T18:01:46Z")
In theory, yes. In the real world it has to fit in the building.
It’s perfectly acceptable to say “ I don’t know” to a question. Really.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/29 "2023-06-22T18:08:29Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> Someone upthread linked to a twenty-year-old book about [Frederic Tudor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Tudor), an American who was big in the ice trade.
I’m here to second the recommendation from upthread. _The Frozen-Water Trade_ is great, informative and fun. Highly recommended.
(I’m also just happy someone else has read this semi-obscure but wonderful book.)
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### Author:  [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/30 "2023-06-22T18:12:50Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#):
>
> It’s perfectly acceptable to say “ I don’t know” to a question. Really.
It was a correct response though maybe not phrased clearly.
The point is that if it turned out one summer (or several summers) that the ice didn’t last long enough, you expand the existing ice house or build a new one. There’s not a lot of engineering goes into it. And you can trial and error size to a certain extent. There’s always a sufficient size and specification to hold how much ice you need, even if you don’t accurately know how much that amount is beforehand.
Mainly, try to have it below ground as much as possible and use insulation. And make sure there’s drainage to deal with the melt.
Running out is unfortunate but, at least in those days, not a complete disaster. So try better the next summer. Or don’t, if it was a fluky and unusually warm summer not likely to occur regularly.
ETA: the very situation describes the Houston area where temps don’t fall below 80 for a few months over the summer. There were people who made ice transport (from northern states) their business. And to this day there are historic ‘ice houses’ still around, those these have become in modern times basically taverns (ice storage being a good way to cool beer as well). And even new “ice houses”, which are more like regular pub/grills and just named “ice houses” for traditional reasons.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/31 "2023-06-22T18:47:17Z")
> [@Cervaise](#):
>
> I’m here to second the recommendation from upthread. _The Frozen-Water Trade_ is great, informative and fun. Highly recommended.
Tudor lived on Nahant, a peninsula not far from me. He built a sort of “Pleasure Park” there called “Maolis Gardens”, and let all classes of people visit (for a small admission price). This pissed off his rich neighbors, who wanted to preserve Nahant as a conclave for the wealthy. There were all sorts of attractions. Years later a lot of items were moved to Bass Point on Nahant, which was an early amusement park, But there still remains one stone pavilion on private land, on Maolis Road in Nahant. (Maolis is “Siloam” spelled backwards – look it up.)
Tudor also kept a mistress. His wife, understandably, didn’t approve. Complex and interesting man.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/32 "2023-06-22T23:26:53Z")
Bigger is better not just for increased stock of ice: the square-cube law means a larger building has relatively less outside for heat to leak in.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2023, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/33 "2023-06-23T01:40:11Z")
Well, yes, to an extent, but to really take advantage of that, you need to make the ice-store taller, as well as longer and wider, and that runs into other practical considerations (it’s tougher to haul the ice up to and down from higher shelves or stories). If you’re already building up to your practical height limit, then your volume-to-surface ratio will stay close to constant as you get larger.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2023, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/34 "2023-06-28T10:11:19Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#):
>
> When did a typical Ice House run out, or would it last all through the summer?
We can do a bit of math. [Wikipedia says](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_(building)):
> During the heyday of the [ice trade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade), a typical commercial ice house would store 2,700 tonnes (3,000 short tons) of ice in a 30-by-100-foot (9 by 30 m) and 14-metre-high (45 ft) building.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_(building)#cite_note-1)
Let’s take that as an example. It seems reasonable; they’re storing 2,700 cubic meters of ice in a 3,780 m^3 building. I don’t know what they used as insulation, but plain straw has an R-value of about 1.5 per inch, or R-54 for a yard (which is probably reasonable for a building that large). In metric, that’s RSI-9.5.
The building has a surface area of 1632 m^2. What is the average temperature delta? I think 20 K is probably reasonable. The inside is 0 C and the outside will vary based on the season and time of day.
The latent heat of fusion for water is 334 kJ/kg. And we have 2,700,000 kg of ice, making for 902 GJ of energy to melt it all.
Our ice house is losing 1632 m^2 \* 20 K / 9.5 m^2-K/W = 3436 W of thermal energy. Which means it takes 262 Ms to melt it all, or 3038 days. So only a very small portion will have melted over the course of a year. The dominant factor is just the rate that you use it at.
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### Author:  [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2023, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-house-illumination/985584/35 "2023-06-28T10:35:07Z")
There’s an C18th icehouse here in York. This photo was taken during its restoration a few years ago. There are no windows, and the floor can only be reached by a ladder. But the light coming through the entrance is enough for photography, so people working in there would have been able to see (even if it was a bit dark).
[ ](https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/resources/images/11095633/)
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