Garden, Camping & Festival no electricity Fridge!

It's getting hotter every day and your electricity bills are not environmentally friendly.

This credit crunching fridge is a sure way to be sure your beverages will stay chilled in the hottest of heats.  It's much greener than your average electrical fridge and will work anywhere where there isn't a lot of humidity.

The pot in pot refrigerator or Zeer was made by Professor Mohammed Bah Abba, though there's evidence it was in use in early Egypt.  It works on the principle of evaporative cooling.

You will need:

Two terracotta pots.  One has to fit inside the other with an inch or so between all the way round.
Sand.
Water.
A towel/cloth big enough to go over it
5-10 minutes, maximum!

Step 1 First pot

Add about 1-2" of sand into the bottom of the big pot.  Don't worry too much about the holes at the bottom, the sand packs down and forms a plug.

Firm down the sand before putting your second pot in.

Comments

[justin.jackson]

i was literally about to start doing and instructable on this very same thing.

[tim_n]

Do it! Variety is the spice of life :)

[Johenix]

A variation on this pincipal is the canvas "Desert Water Bag".

You filled it with water and hung it in a shady breezy spot.

There were commercial and home made versions.

I saw one in 'Boy's Life' in the 1950's. Another described in "The Boy Mechanic: 200 Classic Things to Build' by The Editors of Popular Mechanics was made like this: Cut a two foot long, one foot wide strip of heavy canvas was sewn into a foot square bag with a porcelan knob insilator sewn into an upper corner as a mouthpiece. Two metal rings were attached at the top to allow for a carrying it.

[KittyF]

Louis L'amour talked about an unglazed Terra cotta water vessel hung up under the eaves of the porch in the SW USA from which one would dipper out cool water.

I've always wanted to try that, but we live in PA.

[Javin007]

LOVE Lous L'amour. I've managed to get my hands on about 70% of his books.

[KittyF]

Oh yes, but I don't OWN that many, I prefer to only keep the best ones, so any Sackett stories, maybe Talons and a few treasures such as Down the Long Hills.

Now when it comes to reading them, I consider it a banner day when I find one that I've never read. it's been about two years since the last time I found one, and I was Quite surprised as well as delighted.

[Javin007]

My personal favorite is "The Haunted Mesa." I got started when I was like 9 when a great uncle got me started with an original print - since lost :( - of "A Man Called Noon." When he passed in '88 I was still a kid, and a new rabid fan. I was SOO upset. Even did one of my elementary school papers as a huge biography of his life. Now I'm 34 and I still snag any book I see that I don't already have (but he wrote a LOT of books, so inevitably, I end up with quite a few duplicates accidentally). Plus, with my horrible memory, I can just reread them every few years and it's like the first time! :D

[KittyF]

I liked the Haunted Mesa the first time, but after that the creepy spiritism got to me and I didn't like it after that. a man called Noon has to be right up there in the top five, cause who can resist a secret cottage with a secret passage? there was another with a secret passage set in the Lava beds of NM too. can't recall the name.

there was also a short story in one of the books about the last of the anesazi a young boy leading his family to follow the star.

I think I counted his books once and the fiction ones come to just under 200 I think. including the anthologies.

He was the last of the cowboys who wrote about what they knew. now the writers are writing about what they imagine which doesn't have the ring of authenticity in it.

[skitz]

I've had a little experience working with zeer pots that I think could benefit some people and start some spinoff ideas.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Evaporative-Cooler-1/

I'll try and answer any questions if possible, I'm no expert though.

[sandrak320]

I was wondering if you wanted to keep water cool, would a plastic bucket inside the terracotta and sand work?

[MitoKafander]

So how much cooler did you get your beer with this thing? Just a rough number will do:)

[ducktape.mac]

would plastic pots work?
i'm on a VERY tight budget and i just looked on lowes.com for the prices and they got pretty pricey.
if it's possible, could you please answer fast?

[tim_n]

Will only work with clay pots because water has to soak through and evaporate to cool the pot. You are exposing sand which does the same thing but which doesn't have the surface area.

What you can do instead is use any old pot filled with water and put a tea towel over the top but make sure it goes over what you're going to cool and into the water. The tea towel wickes up the water and evaporates it to cool. Same principle but doesn't have the same thermal mass and won't last as long.

Obviously requires more water which the zeer doesn't require.

[ducktape.mac]

would you mind explaining what a tea towel is? is it just like a rag or something?

[ducktape.mac]

okay, thanks. that helped a lot.
i plan on making one today!

[superbee916]

not sure if it'll work when the holes at the bottom are plugged, but won't a single larger pot filled with water (and beer cans submerged) do the same thing?

[spark master]

how cold do they get, actual temperature difference. If you are in Britian and it works then the drought must be fierce cause you are not in a "dry" place. We here in the USA like our beer much colder, but this would be nice for water bottles, (reusable of course, cause ,( ferget the enviroment for a moment), they cost a fortune. If these make something say 20 degrees cooler and it is 100 degrees outside then that beer is 80 degrees, yeck. Ok for scotch maybe with a cube, but not a nice DinkleAcker Dark. That requires an American beer fridge set at about 36 degrees F and 24 hours of cool , then an insulated mug /stein/bottle wrapper. Boy does my gout ridden toe scream when I discuss beer, natures most perfect food!

[Arano]

the temperature difference is dependend to the temperature where u use it and the dryness of the... and if you really like beer that much you should take a trip to germany ;)

[tim_n]

I do regularly :) Munich is a lovely city with many wonderful beer gardens :)

[Arano]

i hope you visit more than just munich, else you'll miss much of what germany has to offer to visitors ;)

[Turnpike7a]

another thing to try instead of "packing it down" is to make a sludge of sand already mixed with water...pour it in, disperses evenly and packs at the same time...

[sgt_rock]

we yanks heard that you brits drank your beers warm, anyway! Something about having Lucas refrigerators.....:-) -- This sounds good enough to try~!

[desertdog]

I like your instructable.  Living in the desert I am used to evaporative cooling.  Most houses use it to cool the dwelling in the summer.  The drier the air, the better it works.  Also reduces electricity use dramatically compared to refrigerated air.  I will buy the pots this weekend.

[TheGameBall]

What about an outer surface made from some properly-chosen cloth, held up and together with chicken wire? I'm thinking that would increase the area being evaporated.

Hmm... that might lead to too much water leakage. Maybe just the top half would be like that, and we'd be sure to channel the water leaked into the pebble/sand container?

[LobosSolos]

Looks nice, only problem is it would never work in Arkansas.  We're notorious for having high humidity when we have heat, so evaporation wouldn't happen quickly enough to cool anything.

[gardenwife]

 Terrific idea and it looks very nice, too. Great instructions as well - good job!

[sandmason]

Camping in the desert where it was 110F we took a watermelon, wrapped in a wet towel and suspended it in a canvas bag from a tree in the shade. If it dried we poured more water on it. Works for beer too.

[Nelson476]

This is really cool. I'm gonna have to try it this summer.

you should put a thermometer in there and see how cold it actually gets.

[killerjackalope]

Because the beers in it's own container you can actually use one big flower pot and stick them in so the caps about an inch out - to save the drinking sand bit and it'll still work, better if you just have an empty inner and almost as well as having water inside the inner pot. Though that's with cans and bottles.

I do like evaporative coolers, no one believes it will work every time - I live over the water in northern Ireland and the weathers still enough to do it.  As a note, a crate of beer will fit beautifully in a terracotta planter, the windowsill ones...