Last Sunday our old refrigerator quit. It had been fixed two years ago. This time it was decided to get a new one though we could not go shopping until Friday. We bought two bags of ice for the cooler; the food would not stay cool.

Wednesday night Melissa and I were talking about iceboxes, predecessor to the refrigerator. That got us thinking. We tossed around ideas and I suggested dry ice in the refrigerator.

The following morning I bought sixteen pounds of dry ice. Today I got the yogurt as I do every morning and it was really cold, more so than when the refrigerator was working.

Refrigerator not working? Get dry ice and turn it into an ice box.

Jeanette Isabelle

it's a little more efficient to use a chest type cooler, that way the cold dense air doesn't spill out when the door is opened...if you live on the Gulf coast, a couple of 5 or 7 day Igloo/Coleman (I can't afford a Yeti) coolers is pretty common for hurricane power outages...

Great idea, but three cautions when using dry ice.

First: Dry ice is ultra-cold -109.3°F or -78.5°C, use insulating gloves whenever handling as severe burns can occur.

Second: Dry ice is frozen CO2, as it converts to a gas it expands, never store dry ice in sealed container.

Third: Dry ice as it converts to a gas is heavier than air and will displace air, never use in a confined area. Make sure you have adequate ventilation.

Pete

Part of the reason ice boxes worked back in the day is they chiseled out a large block of ice, the thermal mass of one large chunk is greater than many small cubes which have more cubic inches of outsides and the gaps between to allow air flow.

It's not the thermal mass that's different -- the thermal mass of a kilogram of ice at -10 deg C is the same if it's a single cube, a sphere, or a bunch of tiny fragments. The difference is that the smaller the surface area is compared to its mass, the slower the heat transfer through the surface.

In other words, smaller bits of ice are better for rapid heat transfer. Large chunks of ice are better for long-term cooling.

Learned about thermal mass. But I already knew about CO2/dry ice and the need for a CO2 detector if using.

Never took physics, hate math. Brother was a phyics major/irl rocket scientist at one point. go figure

I've never seen a CO2 detector. CO detectors, yes and I use them at work. O2 detectors too.

Very creative solution, Jeanette. Well done and thanks for the idea!

I lived years in desert using an ice chest. I used a block of ice....meat in a ziplock bag laid on top of ice,rest arranged around ice.

Would last about 4-5 days.Kept food finely fresh.Poured out water daily.

I have come across CO2 detectors only once, in a location where there was a concentrated CO2 source (i.e., process industry) in a confined or potentially confined space. Not to be confused, of course, with CO detectors. In this facility, there were both high CO2 and low O2 detectors in the same space, and they alarmed separately. As I recall, a high CO2 level could knock you down even if there was adequate oxygen.

This is probably not a big concern where small amounts of dry ice are used, but the caution about adequate ventilation still has merit.