The Snow Wasset
A heat-driven fridge with zero moving parts, running the 1930 Einstein-Szilard cycle — and the heat source is agnostic: burner, gas line, grid element, solar thermal, or waste heat off another system already running.
Why the name
Named for the Wasset, a snow-loving serpent from Appalachian and northern lumberjack folklore said to live wherever cold gathers. The Einstein cycle behind this fridge does the same thing on purpose — makes cold gather, using nothing but heat to do it.
Three fluids at balanced pressure — ammonia, water, butane — circulate entirely by gravity and vapor pressure. A heat source boils ammonia out of solution at the generator; in the presence of ammonia vapor, butane's effective boiling point drops and it evaporates inside the cold box, pulling heat out as it does. No pump, no compressor, no wear parts. The heat-source flexibility is the whole pitch: a grid-tied home uses the electric element, an off-grid build leans on solar thermal or a flue waste-heat tap.
Tier Ladder
- Settler — Cold Box: ~2–3 cu ft, single dedicated burner, no tie-in options.
- Homesteader — Standing Larder: ~6–8 cu ft, dedicated propane burner, cedar-faced cabinet.
- Foreman — Dual-Source Larder (Greenbrier spec): ~10–14 cu ft, switchable heat manifold (grid, gas, solar thermal, or flue tap).
- Monticello — Cold Room: walk-in scale, networked heat sources with automatic priority switching.
- Mythic — The Snow Wasset: multiple networked units property-wide, single manifold with redundant source switching.
Technical Specifications (Foreman tier baseline)
- Working fluids: ammonia (refrigerant/absorbent pair), water (absorbent), butane (auxiliary refrigerant)
- Heat source: switchable manifold — grid electric, gas/propane (convertible orifice, biogas-ready), solar thermal, or flue waste-heat tap
- Capacity: 10–14 cu ft combined fridge/freezer
- Noise/moving parts: none — fully passive, gravity/vapor-pressure driven
Specialist Sign-Offs Required Before Construction
- Absorption refrigeration specialist — sealed system charge/verification, generator sizing to heat source output
- Gas code compliance — propane connection, convertible orifice sizing, ventilation at the generator stage
- Heat-source integration — if tying to solar thermal or masonry heater waste heat, confirm the tap doesn't rob capacity from the primary system
Open Items
- Foreman tier's heat-source switching hardware (manual valve vs. automatic priority switching) not yet chosen
- Insulation core material (rigid foam vs. vacuum panel) undecided
- Whether Foreman-tier units ship factory-charged or are charged on-site — this is a phone-call-and-quote question, not yet made