Westinghouse

[coolwhip]

I have a 1956 westinghouse refrigerator in my garage and it still works great. All original parts. Keeps my beer nice and cold. I wonder if any newer refrigerators will last 50 years?

[mr big]

They don't make em like they use to!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[xpertser]

I have an old gas refrigerator in my garage.

[Diceman]

I actually worked on a few of them gas fridges, hard to believe you can use heat to make cold. I was telling this guy that helps me about them just yesterday and the old gas A/C units.

[spotts]

the flame replaces the compressor- btu's=horsepower somehow.

[cynic]

Went on a call last year GE monitor top fridge in a private school all they wanted was a new cord put on it.

[Diceman]

Originally posted by spotts
the flame replaces the compressor- btu's=horsepower somehow.

That's pretty much it, still weird.

[icemeister]

Those GE Monitor Tops go back to 1927. These were fully hermetics that ran on Sulfur Dioxide or Methyl Chloride refrigerants before Dupont came out with good old R12.

The SO2 from a distance smells like rotten eggs but up close it makes Phosgene seem harmless by comparison. The fun part of the Methyl was that it was highly flammable!

When I was a kid in the 50s we had an old Frigidaire belt-drive 2-door reach-in cooler in the cellar that was used for ice cream mix storage. As I recall it ran on SO2 and had a sticky low side float that Pop had to rap on to get it freed up for the summer. Those were the days.....or so they say.

[condenseddave]

I've worked on a few SO2's, too. Nasty, nasty sh!t.

[icemeister]

Another thing about the old SO2 and Methyl systems was that the guys in those days were converting all these systems over to over to that new R12 stuff (mainly because it didn't smell so bad and would blow up).

[Green Mountain]

Originally posted by Diceman

Originally posted by spotts
the flame replaces the compressor- btu's=horsepower somehow.

That's pretty much it, still weird.

Its call an absortion system. It uses ammonia and a salt/water solution. Anyway a modern day version of these are the ones that you find in RVs.

When I was at the Smithsonian Institude they had this on display. It is called a Closey Icy Ball and is supposed to be the oldest refrigerator.

One ball would go on the wood stove. The heat would force all the ammonia over into the other ball. Then the house wife would pick the whole thing up by the handle on the tube and put the ball on the other side into an insulated box. The heat load inside the box would force the ammonia back the cooling salt solution in the outside ball. Click on this http://www.ggw.org/~cac/IcyBall/crosley_icyball.html
it is pretty fascinating.

[Edited by benncool on 06-03-2004 at 10:42 PM]

[cynic]

I saw it was a so2 system grabbed the science teacher and let him explain why it wasn't a good idea to have it inside. I too have had the mispleasure of getting a smell of it and it is way worse than phosegene.

[Green Mountain]

Originally posted by cynic
I saw it was a so2 system grabbed the science teacher and let him explain why it wasn't a good idea to have it inside. I too have had the mispleasure of getting a smell of it and it is way worse than phosegene.

SO2 was later on. So2 was still used in compressor systems. It killed parakettes if a leak happened in a house. The home owner would call the fire department. The firemen would carry the refrigerator outside and leave on the curb. I remember seeing this when I was a boy.

So to make the world safe for refrigeration, DuPont invented R-12.