I like these water pumps and still use them sometimes for draining water from ice bar trays.
updated a little 8/27/23, mostly with formatting and seo. Might have to come back later to rework the post after I look into newer meltwater pumps.
meltwater pumps for ice bars and other big ice
Most of the time, the water from an ice sculpture can be simply drained into a container below the sculpture. In the case where the ice is very close to the floor, however, often the water won’t drain away. Thus, controlling the water from any freestanding ice sculpture, like an ice bar or table, can be a problem. Unless you have some sort of a stand that can hold all the water, you’ll probably have to use a water pump to pump it into another container. In this entry, I’ve included photos of three types of pumps that address various issues. None of these water pumps are perfect solutions, but they can certainly help.
the Attwood Waterbuster; a hand-held, battery operated water pump
I’ve used the Attwood Waterbuster a few times. It’s a hand-held, battery operated pump that can help you pump out water wherever you need to. It’s got an attached drain tube and a small button switch and runs on 3 D batteries, supposedly for five hours continuously. It’s a good option if you don’t have enough pumps and have to move pumps from place to place, as an emergency backup, or during breakdown to help you get rid of all the water. Even though this post is old, Attwood Waterbuster pumps are still available. You should be able to find them for under $50.
It probably wouldn’t work well as an unattended pumping system for an ice bar, but it did work well when an attendant used it to periodically drain more than one bar. I’m not sure how well the pump works if it runs dry. Also, inside the pump, the batteries go into a holder that’s easy to accidentally disconnect from the wiring. And remember that batteries exposed to cold often don’t last as long.
I also found the Water Ace Condensate Unit, model RCU20S, (above) at Lowe’s). It’s a condensate pump and is used to get rid of the condensation from an AC unit. It has a couple of small openings and a reservoir.
Once, for an ice table, I had an EPI tray (an older style ice sculpture tray) raised slightly (3 1/2”) off the floor by a wood frame. The water pump was placed next to the drain spout and it drained through a tube into one of the openings in the top of the pump. When water in the reservoir reached a certain level, it pumped it out through the outlet on the top. By connecting a tube to the outlet, I was able to run the water to another container away from the ice table.
This water pump worked well for the ice table. However, if the pump were to fail, the reservoir would quickly fill and overflow. Because the pump is directly on the floor, outside the tray, a failed water pump quickly leads to water all over the floor. If you relied on this setup regularly without some sort of backup container around the pump, you’d eventually have a problem, possibly resulting in damage to a floor or even injury to a guest.
this Little Giant water pump looks to still be available, but the newer version doesn’t look quite like the ones that I have.
The third pump is another condensate pump, the Little Giant 1-ABS. It’s a submersible float operated pump. I bought a few of these from a Grainger outlet several years ago for over $100 per pump. It looks like that’s about what you can get them for now, but the pump looks to have changed a bit. Instead of placing the pump outside of the tray or pool, this pump is placed in it with the ice. When the meltwater gets high enough to activate the float switch, the pump turns on, sending the water out of the tray through a tube to an outside container.
Of the three, this water pump is probably the safest option for unattended drainage, especially if you have two pumps in the tray in case one fails. The float switch can get blocked by ice or debris, but usually it works pretty well.
Whenever there’s any possibility of water getting on the floor at an event, someone at the event needs to be responsible for checking the water control system and dealing with any problems. If the client or the venue won’t accept the responsibility, then you should provide someone to limit the risk of an incident. It would be wise to make these arrangements in advance and even put an agreement in writing if possible.
links and stuff
This post is listed on the ice sculpting techniques page, and you could also find photos and info from this entry on the ice sculpting secrets Instagram account or the facebook page. You can comment there as well as below. And if it won’t LET you comment below, then definitely comment on fb and/or IG. Thanks!
