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Product: Air Conditioner
AC using ice slabs   (+1)  [vote for, against]

Deliver large ice slabs everyday to subscribing houses (just like newspaper delivery); Inside house, simply blow fan over these large ice slabs to distribute coolth throughout the house.

This could be cheaper, more energy efficient. e.g. Ice which is available in colder climate areas ( ex. Dakota), could be supplied to hotter areas ( ex. Texas).

I know this is not a new concept. In last century, there used to be a thing called ice box, which used to use the same principle. The only difference is that, the coolth of ice is used to cool down house instead of icebox.
-- VJW, Jun 08 2011

Liquid air delivery Liquid_20air_20delivery
I have problems with ice but the general concept is good. My anno was spinning into a separate idea which I have linked here. [bungston, Jun 08 2011]

How much energy does it take to deliver the ice every morning and keep it cool during the trip? You've essentially moved the a/c issue from the building to a hoard of fridge trucks.
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 08 2011


make it supercooled ice, delivered to the former "coal celler" of a building. Ice's HC is about half that of water: still pretty decent.
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 08 2011


//keep it cool during the trip? //

May not be much. Just need good insulator, thats all.

If we make ice slab in nearby ice-factory at night, and deliver in the morning to households, that might work too.

In last century, they used supply ice from UK to Calcutta, or from Canada to UK.
-- VJW, Jun 08 2011


hmmmmmmmmm

New to my thinking is that commercial buildings have a $ or c per sq foot value, that the physical cooler could be optimized to higher value spaces, like at a wildly successful commercial building with full occupancy if you can replace the HVAC with something with a tenth the sqfoot area it would be a popular new HVAC mechanism as it would make money.

If you put the HVAC outside the building as a stylish ridge underneath windows You might be able to move the physical plant to the outside of the building creating more tenant space, the attractive rounded ridges might look rather like ceramic insulator fins or other decorations. If its cheaper than building a basement there would be a financial incentive.
-- beanangel, Jun 08 2011


"All the servers are down"

"Why ?"

"No A/C. The ice dleivery didn't come today".
-- 8th of 7, Jun 08 2011


HVAC is typically outside the building.

I'm following you beanie. I think the trick with spot-cooling commercial buildings is knowing where the inhabitants are going to be, as they tend to move around. But there's another way around that. Perhaps if the building tenants were to pay its dwellers to wear body-chilling suits they could save on their A/C bill.
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 08 2011


Can you deliver it from a single location by using 16 inch cannons (such as on an Iowa Class Battleship)? You would have to fashion the ice into a pointed, cylindrical projectile. It would be guaranteed to be delivered quickly to its target with a minimum of melting. Should the projectile be slightly off target and actually destroy the house, the subsequent fire would melt the evidence --- (almost) everybody's happy!

Oh yeah... bun anyway. [+]
-- Grogster, Jun 09 2011


I'm thinking it would melt quite a bit due to extreme barrel heat.
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 09 2011



random, halfbakery