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Photo
special to the Times-Call
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Ed Heusers and his Longmont partner, Guy Menge, plan to
start their
own company, Grand Shelters, and sell their ICEBOX®, an igloo-making kit. |
The
pole has eight notches and it is shortened by one notch for each layer of
snow, pulling the walls in slightly and creating a parabolic curve up to
the top where the form is used to fill in the hole at the top of the dome.
The form won't work without the pole.
Now the two entrepreneurs plan to start their own
company, Grand Shelters. They have a web page on the Internet, where they
will sell the ICEBOX® for about $140. The inventors hope to have the ICEBOX®
in hiking and mountaineering shops in October.
They are already designing windows and doors for
the igloo, which will be sold as accessories.
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By Susan McCann
The Daily Times-Call
LYONS -Just when everyone
is planning summer camping and
hiking trips, cookouts and pool parties, Ed Huesers is trying to keep his
cool building an igloo.
Huesers is hoping to market the ICEBOX® - his newly
designed igloo making kit - by October in time for the winter camping
season.
Huesers and his Longmont partner, Guy Menge, are avid winter hikers
and snow campers: They have hiked into remote areas carrying seven-pound
tents and thought it might be easier to build a snow cave
rather than bringing in a heavy tent.
"We have been building snow caves since
1981," said Huesers. "Even
as a little kid in North Dakota, I would take all the snow in the yard and
pile it up in a big mound and carve out a hole that l could crawl
into."
But building snow shelters can be time consuming
and exhausting. "It
was a lot of work and we got pretty tired," Menge said. "We
started looking for overhangs and then we began using our sleeping pads as
a
form to build walls up to the overhang. It took less snow and less time
than a snow cave." But the walls were unstable and you had to find an
overhang. Menge and Huesers began talking about building an igloo
and they designed the first prototype.
Menge and Huesers were naturals for the job.
Menge is a mechanical engineer and owns his own company, SolidTek, that
designs molds using
a computer. Huesers is a mold maker and owns his own company,
Inventors Aid Service in Longmont. The two friends have been designing and
making molds for plastic injection molders since the 1970s, when
they started working together in North Dakota.
The two say the secret to the success
of the snow dome is the pole, which extends out from the side of the
plastic form to the center of the igloo. A spike secures it to the center
of the floor, where it swivels around with each layer of snow.
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The ICEBOX® weighs 4-1/2 pounds and snaps
together in a 2-inch-thick package for backpacking.A 9-foot or ll-foot
igloo can be created with the same kit. A 9-foot igloo will sleep about
four people tightly and the ll-foot sleeps about six people.
"We have been working on this project
for about four or five years," said Huesers. "We're doing a
patent search, so our patent is pending and we will have it in about a
year."
The igloo will last about two months, Menge
said, making it usable a number of times. It will heat up to about 40
degrees with people inside. The inner layer will melt a little and the
water runs down the sides in little capillaries. Air must circulate
through a vent in the door and roof to prevent a lack of oxygen.
Igloo kit should hit camping stores by October, just in
time for winter season. |
