Windchill Refrigerator: Cheap device to keep food cold without electricity | Hacker News Reader

Windchill Refrigerator: Cheap device to keep food cold without electricity

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76 pointsnkurz19 comments

It's cool that they're tackling problems in the developing world, but it's nothing revolutionary. Evaporative cooling only works in places with low humidity, and their design requires low ground temperatures and a substantial amount of installed infrastructure.

It might be cheap enough and practical enough for locals to install themselves in the places where the low humidity and cooler ground temperatures would allow it to work. But if you put this device anywhere between say 35 degrees north and 35 degrees south it probably won't work very well because the average ground temperature will be too high.

Glad they're thinking of new ways of tackling this...though a much cheaper ($1/unit) and easier to make solution exists (invented in 1990s):

http://practicalaction.org/zeer-pot-fridge

This has actually been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator

Amazing. These cost less than a stamp in the US. Think about that the next time you mail a letter!

> The pots sell at 40 US cents a pair

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator#cite_n...

Honestly it's pretty amazing that having a physical piece of paper collected, sorted , put in a plane, and hand-delivered to someone's door thousands of miles away is so freaking cheap. Postage stamps are crazy.

In many places physical mail is extensively subsidized.

The Iranian city of Yazd is full of windcatchers and qanats which use evaporative cooling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher

Highly reccomend a visit there. It's facinating.

Also the roofs of some old houses in Malta have a small shallow pool to cool the house.

Wouldn't a metal inner pot help with better heat transfer ?

Maybe, but probably cost prohibitive for anyone that would be using one of these.

Didn't know about those. Neat. Thanks for the link.

What temperature can these devices reach? Edit: I found as low as 11 deg Celsius http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/01/make-an-electricity-fre...

See also botijos:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botijo

(Single-walled porous clay pots for storing water in. Water flows through the clay, very slowly, evaporates from the outside, and keeps the water inside cool. I imagine they break forever if you put a liquid that's not water in them as the pores clog up.)

I know someone with one. It works really well, and is ideal for camping or off-grid trips.

You will never get cooler than the Wet Bulb temperature with a evaporation cooler (which is what this essentially is). In most conditions found on earth this will be well above 4.5C

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

Are the 2 statistics presented in any way related? They say a quarter to a half of the food in the world is wasted and 70% of rural Africa doesn't have electricity but is the food waste occuring in those regions due to a lack of electricity? There are plenty of food systems that don't rely on refrigeration. The food waste is occuring in places with adequate refrigeration, but because food is too cheap and people are lazy!

I'm currently living without any refrigeration and it actually works better than expected, but the circumstances are admittedly somewhat beneficial for this lifestyle in my case (I rarely cook with leftovers and there is a supermarket nearby; I hate fridge noises).

There are plenty of foods that don't need refrigeration: Bread, butter, dried meat, porridge, tinned food, and various fruits and veggies are food for days. Here is a good overview [0]. I usually just eat some cold porridge with honey and fruits in the morning and then pasta or something from the freezer or at the canteen.

[0]: http://www.bethandevans.com/pdf/livingwithoutrefrigeration.p...

I'm sure it sounds strange, but I don't have heat in my house. The winter temperatures are between 0 (at night) and 10 (the high). So my whole house is a refrigerator :-) There were some articles on HN about heating yourself rather than heating the space you are in (or at least minimizing the space that you heat).

You are right, about the need for a fridge. You can live quite a nice lifestyle without it -- even if you are into cooking. There are so many pickles and fermented foods. Yogurt is another thing that you can make which will allow your milk to last longer.

The one thing I will caution you about, though, is making sure you have an emergency food supply. You can't rely on supermarkets to have enough food to last if there is any kind of environmental disaster. I live in Japan and when we had a big earth quake in my area (about 8 years ago), I was shocked that the supermarket was picked clean in about 6 hours! It took them days to restock -- and we didn't have any transportation issues at the time. Having fresh food for a few days is fine, but make sure that you stock enough long term storage foods to last you at least a week.

0 and 10 °F or °C? There's a big difference...

Sorry. °C. I would get heat if it was °F.

You can buy one right now from India. http://www.mitticool.in/Mitti-Cool-Refrigerator.php

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