by 3AD Scout, Survival Blog:
My Amish neighbor, who recently moved into the neighborhood, was telling me that he was going to build an ice house from a kit. I told him to let me know when he was going to assemble it and I would give him a hand. I have some historical knowledge of how ice used to be harvested, stored, delivered, and used before modern refrigeration, so I was very interested in how the Amish store and use their ice today.
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The Component kit
The ice house kit consisted of 14 large pieces of styrofoam that were one foot thick. The kit also came with a door that had a very beefy metal locking latch system, and a piece of diamond plate for a threshold. The styrofoam on the door panel was sandwiched in between two pieces of quarter-inch OSB that were covered by some type of resin type material. The cost of this particular kit was about $2,000, including shipping. I was told that the price for the kit was a lower price since several Amish families had gotten together to do a bulk purchase of five units.
Some assembly required
My neighbor had laid down and leveled out a bed of what looked to be 2B bank gravel. The first 3 pieces of one-foot thick foam was laid directly onto the gravel making a foundation of about 12 feet wide by about 9 feet long. Door and window low expansion spray foam was sprayed in between the pieces to “glue” them together. We then used the spray foam to attach the door section in the middle/center of the back piece of foam that was on the ground. We used the spray foam to fuse all the other pieces to build the walls of the ice house.
Once the walls were in place we then applied the spray foam to the top of the walls and laid the 3 pieces of foam that would make the flat the flat roof. These pieces were also 1 foot thick, 12 feet long and 3 feet wide. When standing inside the the ice house, the height was 6 feet.
The assembly was done with 12 mph sustained winds and 26 mph gusts. Temperatures were about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. There were three of use doing the work with LED headlamps for light. The main assembly of the ice house took about 2.5 hours. The assembly probably would have taken less time if the temperature was warmer and the winds less. The cans of spray expansion foam flowed very slow due to the cold. After the first few cans, I suggested we put the cans in a bucket of warm water. That really helped the foam flow much better. The winds played havoc with trying to keep the foam blocks in place.
Some added touches
My neighbor will eventually have to cut “V” notches on the seams between the pieces of styrofoam both inside and outside of the ice house. Once these V notches are cut they will be filled with spray foam to provide a stronger “weld” between pieces. The outside of the ice house will be covered over with some type of weather resistant siding. Unlike many Amish who use the main door to enter the ice house to put food items inside and to take items out, my neighbor will be placing a refrigerator (minus the electric motor and components for cooling) into the wall across from the ice house’s main door. The idea is that the food will be placed in the refrigerator body and only the refrigerator’s door needs to be opened to get food in or out. In theory, this should cut down on how quickly the ice in the ice house melts. A lot depends upon the insulation value of the refrigerator door.
Suggested Improvements
The simple addition of dowel rods would help to connect and improve the strength of the foam blocks and help keep the pieces together, especially in windy and cold conditions. The melted water supposedly will drain through the styrofoam, I’m a little skeptical of that theory since foam is closed cell, so I would add some type of drain capability. The floor is bare styrofoam and something should be put on the floor to protect the foam over time.
Although my neighbor was going to store and access his food through a refrigerator body set into the ice house wall, I think I would add at least two 4”x4” posts with a stainless steel rod going across the top to hang animal carcasses waiting to be cut and/or preserved. The styrofoam used for the build looked like expanded Polystyrene (EPS) used to protect items in packaging (just a lot bigger piece) but not the extreme dense styrofoam (extruded polystyrene or XPS). Both EPS and XPS have very good insulating properties, but XPS foam has better strength. The other benefit to using XPS foam would be so that you could earth bank the ice house for added insulation.
Getting ice
The Amish still use ice harvested from lakes and ponds. Locally, several Amish families share in the task cutting and hauling the ice. They do use a saw with a four-stroke gas engine to cut the ice. Other Amish in the area also place five gallon plastic buckets out to catch rainwater in the Fall and then allow them to freeze. The frozen cylinders are then transported and stacked inside their ice houses. I think the five gallon bucket method would be the much better option in a post-SHTF environment considering that many people may not have a lake or pond nearby or a team of draft horses and wagon to haul the ice. The 5-gallon bucket also is less time-consuming, and safer.
In listening to my Amish neighbor he said somebody always falls into the water to some degree when they harvest the ice each year. In talking to several local Amish about their ice houses they state that the ice generally gets them to the Fall. This past year one local family’s ice did run out towards the end of August, but this was the first time that has happened in twenty years. All report that the ice house does an excellent job of keeping things cool.
Conclusion
I think a good ice house could be built for less than the $2,000 that this particular kit cost. I also think using a better quality/sturdier foam and then earth banking or totally burying the icehouse would make it better. Adding some type of wood, load-bearing frame would add strength (especially if you were going to earth bank it or bury it. If you were able to dig into the side of a hill and place the ice house into the hill then backfill around it, then you might be able to leave the floor just dirt/gravel thus saving cost on foam and taking care of the melting ice drainage issue. I also believe you could sandwich six 2” thick foam sheets together if you could not locally source 12” thick styrofoam.
