# Backyard icerink chiller



## Guap0_ (Dec 2, 2017)

> My rink is approximately 750 square feet which would require 3 or 4 cooling tons.


There is a ice skating rink in Central Park NYC. It needed a major overhaul. Ed Koch was the mayor at the time & no matter what he had the city do, they couldn't get the water to freeze. They were trying to use a Freeon/Gas system similar to what you said that you need. The fiasco continued for a few years.


Enter Donald Trump. He made a deal with the mayor that he would fix the rink for free in return for something which I don't remember. To cut to the chase, he used an absorption system sometimes called a brine system. That would be your best bet.


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

The thought of a backyard ice rink brings back memories of times when we had plenty of cold temps to give us good ice, here in Maine of course. We had small ponds with a fire pit and swamps were a lot of fun, skating between all of the brush. I think between age 10 and 14 I spent half my winters on ice somewhere.

Good luck
Bud


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## bfrabel (Oct 22, 2017)

Dports said:


> My rink is approximately 750 square feet which would require 3 or 4 cooling tons.



Where'd you pull that formula from? I'm surprised to see such small numbers for the refrigerant capacity that you think you need.

Even if 3-4 tons is a correct number, you need to be aware that the rated capacity of a compressor will change based on operating conditions. The lower the suction pressure, the more horsepower you need to get the same amount of refrigeration. A 3 ton air conditioner compressor is much smaller than a 3 ton freezer compressor would be. You might actually need closer to a 10 ton air conditioner if you're going for 3-4 tons worth of ice making capacity. 

Also be aware that residential A/C condensers aren't designed to operate at cold outdoor conditions. They can be made to work, but it wouldn't be cheap and you'd have to find someone who knows what they are doing, such as a refrigeration technician. This person would also need to figure out how to cobble together the needed stuff to turn it into a chiller. Also, I doubt that the R410a refrigerant that most air conditioners are designed to work with would work very well for an ice rink.

In other words, I'm thinking you might be WAY better off spending the money for a purpose built rink chiller.

Good luck though.


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## beenthere (Oct 11, 2008)

4 tons of cooling trying to freeze/keep frozen a 750 sq ft rink. Is like a window unit trying to cool a screened in porch. Not gonna happen.


Your talking about freezing/keeping frozen 1000 to just over 2000 pounds of water/ice depending if your rink is 2" or 4" thick. 



At 1000 pounds it will take the removal of 144,000 BTUs to turn 32°F water to 32°F ice. After you add in solar gain, and the weather warming up. You would need a 7.5 ton refrigeration unit to do what you want.


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## Guap0_ (Dec 2, 2017)

> Not gonna happen.


That's why an absorption system is the way to go.


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## bfrabel (Oct 22, 2017)

Guap0_ said:


> That's why an absorption system is the way to go.



An absorption system is just an oddball type of system that uses heat and a chemical process to make refrigeration, instead of a compressor and "Freeon". The end result is exactly the same as any other means of refrigeration. Btu's are btu's, it doesn't matter how you get there.

Correctly sizing the chiller, along with properly sizing and laying out the pex are the important things to consider, not weather it uses an absorber or not.


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## roughneck (Nov 28, 2014)

Guap0_ said:


> That's why an absorption system is the way to go.


Actually conventional systems are quite common. The largest one I worked on was a water cooled system that used R22. Duel 16 cylinder York compressors were used. Pumped into a brine heat exchanger that ran out into the rink floor. 
Absorbers are just the means of heat removal. Doesn’t have any real effect on the end process, assuming all things equal.


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## SPS-1 (Oct 21, 2008)

Its quite surprising (to me) how much info there is out there on small rink chillers.

Calculations: https://www.brighthubengineering.co...lculate-the-refrigeration-load-for-ice-rinks/ 

And there are a number of residential type systems available. The brief look that I had showed small chillers in the range of 5 - 10 tons, but I suppose that depends a lot on ambient ground and air temperature, and size of the rink. The outfit in Canada was noting typical current of 200 Amp. http://www.firstlinerinks.com/refrigerated-ice-rink/


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## Tymbo (Jan 18, 2018)

First Line Rinks requires approximately 200 amps @ 230 vac, 1 ph, 60 hz.

That's a lot of juice!


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## Guap0_ (Dec 2, 2017)

The reason that Trump used an absorption system in Central Park was because every time that the contractors poured concrete over the lines that contained the freeon, the lines would break making it worthless. There is an absorption system that doesn't use gas. There are two loops, one with lithium bromide & the other with plain water. The pipes are much stronger & can withstand the concrete. Trump made a fool out of the mayor at that time. The rink was out of service for about 4 years.


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## roughneck (Nov 28, 2014)

Guap0_ said:


> The reason that Trump used an absorption system in Central Park was because every time that the contractors poured concrete over the lines that contained the freeon, the lines would break making it worthless. There is an absorption system that doesn't use gas. There are two loops, one with lithium bromide & the other with plain water. The pipes are much stronger & can withstand the concrete. Trump made a fool out of the mayor at that time. The rink was out of service for about 4 years.


Most don’t have refrigerant lines in the concrete, it’s a brine solution that runs through a heat exchanger.


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## Guap0_ (Dec 2, 2017)

The story with Trump & the Wollman Rink happened over 30 years ago so I'm sure things have changed.


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## beenthere (Oct 11, 2008)

Guap0_ said:


> The story with Trump & the Wollman Rink happened over 30 years ago so I'm sure things have changed.



Even 50 years ago, refrigerant lines for vapor compression refrigerants under or in concrete was not common. Brine or glycol were the main choices.


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## yuri (Nov 29, 2008)

Broken refrigerant lines? 

That sounds ridiculous. :vs_laugh:

Why did they not make a steel sleeve/vault/box and lay it in the ground and run the lines thru it? No different than burying elec conduit. Put sand around it and it won't compact.

It is not Rocket science to bury pipes in ground. There must be more to the story.


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## roughneck (Nov 28, 2014)

To get back on the original question, the OP doesn’t mention anything about a heat exchanger, refrigerant piping, changing the compressor to one more suited to low temperature operation, or dealing with R-410A in a low temperature application.


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## Guap0_ (Dec 2, 2017)

Indirectly, my response addressed refrigerant piping. Absorption piping is stronger than refrigerant piping.


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## roughneck (Nov 28, 2014)

Guap0_ said:


> Indirectly, my response addressed refrigerant piping. Absorption piping is stronger than refrigerant piping.


Absorption is just the nature of how you chill the brine solution that goes under the rink. 
Since even in conventional systems, brine/glycol is used to freeze the rink. And a refrigerant to brine heat exchanger is used between the two. 
I’ve never personally seen a rink of which refrigerant lines were directly run in concrete. Which even if it didn’t leak while laying concrete, it would soon after. As concrete and copper don’t like each other very much.


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## Guap0_ (Dec 2, 2017)

I never worked on a rink. I'm going by what Trump did with the Wollman Rink & some experience with an absorption system used for AC, in a NYC office building.


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## beenthere (Oct 11, 2008)

Guap0_ said:


> I never worked on a rink. I'm going by what Trump did with the Wollman Rink & some experience with an absorption system used for AC, in a NYC office building.



Don't forget that those pipes that leaked for the Wollman rink. Had been unprotected for over a year. Due to other work delays. The flooding that created the stream yhat they ended up laying under was one of the major causes for the leaks. 



The original rink had a brine system. And Trump merely said he would revert back to that. And simply build over top of what had already been done.


He was also able to do it faster, as he wasn't tied down with all the red tape the city was when it came to bids from subs.


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## Guap0_ (Dec 2, 2017)

> The original rink had a brine system. And Trump merely said he would revert back to that.


I don't think that he knew that because he said that he had called a friend of his in Canada for advice who told him about the brine system. There was a chapter on it in his book. 




> He was also able to do it faster, as he wasn't tied down with all the red tape the city was when it came to bids from subs.


Also in that chapter, he said that he would go there to watch the guys work. Trump Tower is in walking distance. At one point, he went there & saw the guys chatting. He returned 45 minutes later & no one had moved. I'm sure that the red tape problem existed as it always does but management didn't sound too swift either. Apparently, the same mistakes were made more than once. I would have to read that chapter again to remember all the details. Suffice it to say that he made a fool out of Mayor Koch.


BTW, there was another construction improvement that Trump made for the city. Again, it was for another deal in return but seemed to be well worth it for commuters. The E & the F subway trains from Queens enter Manhattan at 53rd St. The first stop is Lexington Ave. The #6 train runs north & south on Lexington Ave. The problem was that there was no free transfer from one line to the other. People from Queens had to go all the way to the west side, if they didn't want to pay an extra fare. I believe that it was Trump who built that transfer point. It saved a lot of time. 

https://www.diychatroom.com/f17/backyard-icerink-chiller-651319/index2/#


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## beenthere (Oct 11, 2008)

Guap0_ said:


> I don't think that he knew that because he said that he had called a friend of his in Canada for advice who told him about the brine system. There was a chapter on it in his book.



He knew it was there/had been in use. He may not have known which was better.


The red tape of the city, is the voting and wording of contracts. Takes a long time to get things approved by committees, compared to one person calling the shots.


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## Guap0_ (Dec 2, 2017)

> The red tape of the city, is the voting and wording of contracts. Takes a long time to get things approved by committees, compared to one person calling the shots.


6 years? It wasn't a red tape problem for 6 years. The rink was closed in 1980. Koch promised to have it opened by 1985. Trump made his offer to fix it in 1986 after the city had spent $12 Million including a $200,000 study as to why it didn't work. Trump fixed in 4 months & 25% less than his estimate of $3 Million.

https://www.diychatroom.com/f17/backyard-icerink-chiller-651319/index2/#


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## beenthere (Oct 11, 2008)

Guap0_ said:


> 6 years? It wasn't a red tape problem for 6 years. The rink was closed in 1980. Koch promised to have it opened by 1985. Trump made his offer to fix it in 1986 after the city had spent $12 Million including a $200,000 study as to why it didn't work. Trump fixed in 4 months & 25% less than his estimate of $3 Million.



Didn't say the red tape took or made it take 6 years. But that Trump could do it faster in the end since he was the only one calling the shots. 



And it was the city's red tape that caused them to try and do it with a vapor compression system.


It was the city's red tape that caused a 13 month no work done hold up.


He also did it for less, because he convinced one of the biggest sub contracting company's he worked with. To do the work for no profit. By promising them lots of publicity for it. Unfortunately, they never actually got that publicity.


If you want to go into it more. Then make a new thread about it in the CBR forum.


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## Guap0_ (Dec 2, 2017)

> If you want to go into it more. Then make a new thread about it in the CBR forum.


I'm not interested. The history of the Wollman Rink was already written. If you want to rewrite it, don't include me. 

https://www.diychatroom.com/f17/backyard-icerink-chiller-651319/index2/#


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## beenthere (Oct 11, 2008)

Guap0_ said:


> I'm not interested. The history of the Wollman Rink was already written. If you want to rewrite it, don't include me.





LOL, I'm just trying to keep it real for the way it was. Not sounding like a miracle.


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## ionized (Jun 8, 2012)

Do you insulate this ice/chiller from the ground or couple it? If the ground is frozen you won't need much refrigeration. If it is not, it is one heck of a heat sink if not insulated. I guess that depends on the air vs. ground temperature when you want the water frozen and the answer to that is not simple in some locales

Will an insulated (pool) cover help? If your ice is thick enough, a radiator might help. This would work the same way solar pool heaters cool the pool in hot periods. You circulate pool water (brine in this case) through an emitter at night bringing the temp down so you don't get as much melting during the warmer day in marginal times.

I skated on back swamps and ponds as a kid too. One of my earliest memories was dad, with bare hands on a brutally cold day, tying hockey skates on my brother and I as tight as his numb hands could. He was trying to keep our spindly little ankles straight. One group of kids in town used to build a shack of scrap lumber every winter and burn it down in the spring on a back swamp. some of those guys were nuts and the rest egged them on.

I was shocked when dad said that he and his friends skated on river ice as adolescents. I asked him what they did when they suddenly came upon open water. "We learned to jump." The bigger question is how they all avoided hitting thin ice and drowning that way. That goes with how he learned how to swim. The little kids jumped into the swimming hole. If they floated all is good. They learned to paddle around. If they sank, the big kids pulled them out.


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## beenthere (Oct 11, 2008)

The OP posted that he only gets a few days at a time that it is below freezing. So hopefully the rink is insulated from the ground as being un-insulated would cause an excessive amount of time for the rink to freeze over.


While using night time ambient air to help freeze or keep the ice frozen. Is an economical method. It won't help when his night temps are 32 to 34°F. 



But good thoughts in general.


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## roughneck (Nov 28, 2014)

Hopefully the OP has even seen these replies. As the last time he logged in was when he started this thread.


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