124. Comparative Efficiency of Iceless Refrigerators. In some localities, where it is difficult to get ice often enough to pay for having a refrigerator, other devices have to be depended upon for keeping food cool. Except when cold running water can be used in coolers, they do not take the place of refrigerators, because they cannot maintain the low temperature of a good refrigerator. As a rule, the best of the makeshifts are about on a par with the poorer refrigerators. They are very useful in emergencies.
Fig. 58. Iceless
refrigerator.
125. Iceless Refrigerator. One of these devices is called the iceless refrigerator (Fig. 58). It depends upon the evaporation of water to make it cool. Water will evaporate sufficiently fast to cool a refrigerator enough to be of value only in a dry, hot, breezy place. Under the most ideal condition, an iceless refrigerator may hold as low a temperature as 65 degrees Fahrenheit, when the thermometer is registering above 90 degrees.
This refrigerator consists of a cloth-covered frame and a device for keeping the cloth moistened with fresh water. Since wind or a good circulation of air helps in the evaporation of water, the iceless refrigerator must be placed where breezes may reach it, and it should be anchored so that it will not blow away.
An iceless refrigerator may be made from a rectangular frame of wood, to which heavy canton flannel is buttoned or tacked. On the top of this should be placed a pan of water with strips of cloth extending from the water to the covering of the frame. This will conduct the water from the pan out onto the cloth. The number of strips of cloth regulate the rapidity with which the water is carried to the sides of the refrigerator. The food is set inside (Fig. 58.) The refrigerator should be placed in a shady spot where the breezes can strike it. Iceless refrigerators must be kept clean, and the covering of cloth should be washed occasionally.
Fig. 59. Device for
cooling food.
Some iceless refrigerators are enclosed in a chimney-like closet built on the house, the cold air coming in at the bottom and being drawn upward by the natural draft of the chimney-like structures. This draft hastens the evaporation of the water. Such refrigerators are expensive and less satisfactory than ice ones.
126. Small Cooler. A few things may be kept cool, like a bottle of milk and a small dish of butter, by setting them in a shallow pan of water and covering them with a flannel cloth which comes down into the water and so remains moist (Fig. 59). The evaporation of the water from the flannel cools the food somewhat below the temperature of the surrounding air.