St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1898-06-25
FARMER AND PLANTER.
THE COLD STORAGE HOUSE,


a Valuable Adjunct to Any Well-Rege-
lated Farm, hut 1t Needs Care
In Construction.
want l , build q cold-storage house
for my family and farm use. and should
like instructions, particularly with re-
gard to ventilation and insulation. l
especially would like to know how
large a storage room can cool to the
proper temperature with given
amount of ice in the building. Also
what is the best temperature at which
to keep the cold storage room for milk
preservation and for general domestic
pun poses? M Z.
A cold-storage house should be built
with the same care, and on the same
methods, as an ice-house; rs to keep
cold in a house required the same meth
ods as to keep heat out. The walls
should be non-conducting. and while
the ice is not kept in the house, but in
a receptacle above it, made like an ice
house, yet to retain the GOODNESS OF the
Ice above the cold chamber the mode
of constructing this must be the same
as for an ice-house.
II goes without saying that ventila-
tion is wholly fatal to the maintenance
of lower temperature than that out
side the building. The object is to re-
tain temperature as near the freezing
point as possible, and yet not to per-
init freezing. Amy method of ventila-
tion will necessarily be fatal to this.
So that as the purpose of ventilation is
to preserve the purity Of the air in the
cooler, and this may be done by other
means, these must be taken; and en-
avoided.
As the impurities that will gather in
a cool chamber will consist of moisture
derived from the contents of the cold
closet, any method of condensing this
and gathering it will be equivalent to
the effects of ordinary ventilation,
as it will purify the air by taxi
ing from it these impurities with
the moisture of it. This is done
most effectively by the use of fresh
stone lime, which absorbs one-third its
weight of water from the air about it,
and as dry air is pure and free from all
matter that may be suspended in it be-
fore it is dried, the purity of the closet
is secured by this use of lime. A sup
ply of the fresh lime is therefore all
that is needed for this purpose. As it
becomes saturated with moisture it
falls to dry powder which is the hy-
drate of lime, and is then replaced by
fresh supply. The lime may be Kept
in pan in the house.
The ice is used in this way: Above
the cold closet there is receptacle for
the ice, protected in the same way as
the ice-house is-that is, by double
walls and a double door through which
the ice is put into it. The floor of this
ice chamber is of metal as the best
conductor; galvanized iron or sheet
zinz is the best material, and this
is SO disposed that the wa
ter from the melting ice will flow to
one corner, where drain pipe is fitted.
harrington safety against entrance of
air-a curved trap made like an 5 laid
on its side. 1t will be an extra means
the closet, through the corner of which
the drainage flows, and another out
side at the entrance into the drain
through which the waste water es-
capped.
1t is impossible to say just how much
ice will be required to supply any sort
of cold-storage closet. 1t depends upon
the mode in which it is constructed. ON
the size Of it, and on the quantity of
stuff in it to he cooled. The best tenn
perature is As degrees, for at any lower
degree something will be damaged,
as by freezing, which .injures the
texture, and causes sort of drainage
of the liquid matter after thawing.
Meat is thus damaged consid-
erably, unless it is kept constantly
frozen until it is used. The tempera-
ture mentioned is the best, as shown
by practical business in this way. for
milk and all other domestic supplies.
The rule must be to keep u sufficient
quantity of ice always in the upper
part of the closet to maintain the de-
gree of cold desired. A very short ex-
perience will give the needed informa-
tion in this respect. The only rule to
be guided by is the general one, that
one pound of ice in melting will take
up 142 degrees of heat, and thus cool
one pound of anything from l74 de-
grees to 80. These figures will enable
you to make calculation by the rules
of proportion. A thermometer in the
closet is Indispensable to maintain ac
curacy and economy of ice.-Country
Gentleman.