This year I'm wondering about adding dry ice...

[Arob]

Tell me haunters, is dry ice easy to work with? or is it a pain?

How dangerous is it?

Here's the skinny: My property has a fish pond that is kind of shallow on one end and there's a little wooden bridge (that creaks) that I usually route all pedestrian traffic over and thereby create a scarier walk to the house through my backyard. This year I think it would be even scarier if there was a light fog around their ankles... oh creepy

So I'm thinking about adding some kind of automatic dry ice dispenser system to the water in the frog pond. But i haven't got a clue how to do it, or where to get the dry ice?

Any helpful suggestions?

[Revenant]

My first suggestion would be to not use dry ice. The big problem with it is it's so cold, it freezes the water around it and seals itself off so it doesn't fog any more. The industrial dry icew foggers that they use in Hollywood have high-BTU heating elements in the water to prevent that, which isn't practical in a backyard pond (it would melt your pond liner for one thing). Besides, you'd have to keep replenishing it and it's pricey.

You're much better off using a regular fogger and a fog chiller, which you can make yourself cheaply. There's several threads on here about making fog chillers (one of them's a monster... the people here know which one I'm talking about), and you can get a small 400 watt fogger for 20-25 bucks that should be all you need to fog your pond. And when that fog's nice and cold it'll hover over the surface of the water and last a lot longer than the dry ice fog would anyway, especially if you use a heavy grade fog fluid like Froggy's Swamp Juice.

If you're dead set on dry ice, best place is an industrial gases supplier that deals in bulk CO2. But you're really much better off with a fogger/chiller setup.

[BadTable Manor]

I can vouch for Revenant. The one and only time I used dry ice, I ended up babysitting it all night, constantly having to run and fetch hot water so it wouldn't freeze the container. My guests felt ignored, and the dang thing froze up anyway.

[scream1973]

If you have a pond why not get a couple of the pond ultrasonic misters to let out a blanket of fog.

You can get them in multiple head configurations to push out a fair amount of fog.

[Arob]

What the heck is this product you are referring to? and where would I get such a thing? Is it electric?

Does it use dry ice?

When my mate was working on Are You Afraid of The Dark? he had a freezer full of these small white dry ice pellets. He showed them to me once. He said that if I ever put one in a plastic water bottle and screwed the lid tight it would explode from build up of internal pressure of nitrogen (or carbon dioxide?) expanding in the vessel.

Anyway when they were shooting outside in the summer he said he would just throw the white pellets in the mud puddles and the steamy fog would appear around the characters ankles almost instantly...

but now you all say that it will freeze the pond, and maybe you are right. I remember it was quite cold up here in Toronto Canada last year on Oct 31st...

[Liam]

Ultrasonic misters are little things (for lack of a better word) that you plug into a standard AC electrical outlet and then put in the bottom of a body of water. Some of them also have colored LEDs in the assembly so that you can light up your fog.

Here's a link I just found to a vendor (no relation, no affiliation at all):

http://www.mainlandmart.com/foggers.html

But yeah, dry ice is way more trouble than it's worth.

Liam

[Fenirus]

that sounds like a good idea for a good haunted house

[Bone Dancer]

The only time I had luck with dry ice is when I put into a crock pot (slow cooker) that keep the water from freezing around the dry ice. Ultrasonic foggers work well for smaller scale things but for an outdoor pond a regular fogger and chiller are the way to go.
But if the wind comes up it doesnt matter what you use. good luck

[YardHaunt ATOM]

I will vouge for the ultra sonic fogger... I use the single head smaller scale ones every year.... I also use foggers and chillers. In my grave yard the chillers have fog rolling down the lawn, but I hav a tombstone I bult that used to bleed but after a problem one year with the pump I added the U.S.F. to the bottom with the leds and got alot of complaments.... and it seems that it stays right around the area it is used in. Last year I made a colum type water fall and added a U.S.F. to the top and bottom because I liked the effect so much. The site that LIAM gave is the same place I ordered from last year, seemed to be the cheapest I found. You con look at my pics on my photobucket to hopefully give an idea.... Hope this helps a little!

[Revenant]

What the heck is this product you are referring to? and where would I get such a thing? Is it electric?

Does it use dry ice?

When my mate was working on Are You Afraid of The Dark? he had a freezer full of these small white dry ice pellets. He showed them to me once. He said that if I ever put one in a plastic water bottle and screwed the lid tight it would explode from build up of internal pressure of nitrogen (or carbon dioxide?) expanding in the vessel.

Anyway when they were shooting outside in the summer he said he would just throw the white pellets in the mud puddles and the steamy fog would appear around the characters ankles almost instantly...

but now you all say that it will freeze the pond, and maybe you are right. I remember it was quite cold up here in Toronto Canada last year on Oct 31st...

Ultrasonic foggers are small electronic units (they come4 with wall wart power supplies) that you put just under the surface of the water. They make ultrasonic vibrations that atomize the water into a very cool rolling fog that disappears immediately when it's turned off. To do a large surface you'd need several multi-head units to make enough fog. Search online. A good source is places that deal in greenhouse/hydroponics supplies.

Remember your friend was shooting a TV series. Things were taped one scene/shot at a time, so the dry ice pellets only needed to bubble and smoke for less than a minute because they edit all the shots together later. In a haunt you need something with constant output that's set & forget. Dry ice isn't good for that, it needs to be constantly replenished.

[Brckee1]

This would be a perfect situation to use a high pressure water fog system. Basically a high pressure pump forces water through specially designed nozzels to create perfect low lying fog. It is also adjustable. I use this style system.
Usually people think it's way too expensive. You can get a piece of copper tubing and install the nozzels yourself. The nozzels are about 20 dollars each. Don't buy an expensive pump, just use a cheap electric pressure washer pump. If you already have a pressure washer, it's even cheaper. it's true that eventually, you will burn out this type of pump. I usually get 180 to 200 hours out of them running them 5 to 7 hours at a time. May or may not be something you are interested in but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Sickie Ickie]

how large of a fog does it produce?

[Brckee1]

Well, like I said it is adjustable. You can adjust it two ways, one by regulating the pressure and another by turning the nozzels, the tighter you screw them in, the less fog comes out. I should have mentioned also that you should use a pressure regulator on the output of the pump.

You can get a whole lot of fog this way, far more from just one nozzel than from an ultrasonic mister. I usually use 6 or 8 nozzels in my haunt and it easily fills a 1500 ft area quickly. The fog stays low maybe reaching 3 feet high if you let it. Of coarse wind and temp. would effect it. It is also more controlable in that you can direct the nozzels to shoot fog in whatever direction you want as opposed to the ultrasonic style.

There are even fire suppression systems which use this technology, that should give you an idea of how much fog this is capable of producing.