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CITTA' DI CASTELLO HAS CONCLUDED THE FIRST ICE BLOCK BET IN ITALY


Under the incredulous eyes of hundreds of onlookers a nearly intact ice block emerged on June 5, after the "fall of the wall", more exactly after the front wall of a small house of 2,5 meters width and length came down. On April 16 a two ton ice block had been lowered by a construction crane into the cottage, built in the preceding days according to the low energy house standard in the central square of this little town in the Upper Tiber Valley. In the hottest spring in Central Italy since 1800, 2,3° Celsius above average, the ice had been exposed for 51 days to temperatures often above 30 degrees. "We started to become afraid ourselves", comments Maria Guerrieri of Climate Alliance Italy the action, "if in the end it wouldn't be the many sceptics who would have the last laugh". The mayor of Città di Castello, Fernanda Cecchini, who had supported the action enthusiastically from the beginning, said:"We have won the ice block bet not only because 70% of the block has remained thanks to insulation, but above all, because we succeeded to awaken an interest in the public for energy saving, a subject which usually is the exclusive domain of experts."



The "casetta" had the support of a large group of partners. Beside the institutional ones like the Region of Umbria and the Province of Perugia, both members of the Climate Alliance, as well as the Chamber of Commerce many private firms, a big building material outlet, a construction firm, a local group of entrepreneurs participated in the project. The planning studio responsible for the building insisted on using only materials common in the territory and so in the historical piazza the brick layers got to work, erecting the walls, plastering them and putting on a roof with tiles, provoking the inevitable ironic remarks by the on-lookers about possible uses after the action. In fact the demolition crane needed half an hour to bring down the front wall. According to the official result 74.5% of the ice block remained intact and among the 270 participants that had presented their written bet the jury picked the 25 winners with the first price being a refrigerator A+, the 25th a visit in a popular ice saloon in town.

 



Climate Alliance Italy accompanied the installation for during its five weeks with a series of initiatives that reached their conclusion in a conference on sustainable energy use on June 5. The same day in Bolzano the second ice block bet got under way. The annual assembly of Climate Alliance Southern Tyrol was the occasion for installing two ice blocks, each of 2m3, one of them unprotected the other one inserted in a ClimateHouse Gold. The bet is under the patronage of the City of Bolzano and is organised by the ClimateHouse Agency in collaboration with the environmental department of the city government. The ClimateHouse Gold will be opened on July 5 and we can be curious what the result will be.