anyone ever turn a fridge upside down?

[mopinko]

iirc, one of the things that lovings did was to turn a fridge over, so that the compressors waste heat escapes without heating fridge. this makes perfect sense. why aren't they made this way, anyway? seems like a job that is within the scope of a decent tinkerer.

[Kingshakabobo]

1. Some of the more expensive models are made that way.....nt

[Duer 157099]

2. Hmmm...

I'm trying to envision how my ice maker would work, or the water dispenser for that matter ... not to mention the drawers ... :D

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. your thinking is embedded in molded plastic. There are always ways.

often better than the original design.

[Duer 157099]

12. No, it's my fridge that's embedded in molded plastic!

No, if they were modular and you could move things around like Legos... totally cool

[ChairmanAgnostic]

13. break the paradigm. You are RIGHT ON TRACK ! ! !

tis a brave person who dares to cut through a "finished" product.

[mopinko]

14. i would, but

the hubby is a different story. i have been dying to try this. oh well, im my next life, i will be a hermit.

[htuttle]

3. Almost nothing is designed with energy efficiency/conservation in mind

Since energy has been so cheap for so long, relatively speaking, every other design consideration, including cosmetic issues, takes precedence over energy usage issues.

Other than very recent appliances, probably 90% of the energy-using items in our society need to be completely redesigned with energy use the first consideration, not the last.

[jdadd]

4. Compressors were on top

In the 1930s....:shrug:

[tech3149]

8. Yuo beat me to it

I remember my family using one into the 50's.

PS: Welcome aboard jdadd

[Ian David]

5. What would make even more sense would be...

setting-up the refrigerator or freezer so that during the summer, it dumps its heat outside the home.

And then, during the winter, it dumps its heat inside the house.

Or if it dumps the waste heat into the hot water heater.

[YankeyMCC]

16. This is the way to think

homes should be designed (or redesigned when large maintenance or reconstruction projects are done) as full systems so that efficiency measures like this can be used.

[Poppyseedman]

6. Probably a safety feature so the weight of the compressor does

not make the fridge top heavy and easy to tip over

Just my guess

[mopinko]

9. maybe

at least that does make sense. as posted above, they used to be on top. couldn't figure out for the life of me why they would have changed that.
kinda lame reason, tho. was there an epidemic of idiots being squashed by fridges?

[Poppyseedman]

10. As the fridges got larger over time, so did the compressors,

Refrigerator used be be small: milk, butter, meats.

Years ago, lots of foods were bought daily and consumed daily.

In todays world half of the food we buy is processed and needs to be keep refrigerated.

[razors edge]

11. Try here

Samsung has been supplying the highest efficiency coolers for industry for some time I am told.

I bought a freezer on the bottom unit with separate cooling (comp,condenser,evap) and love it.

The efficiency tag that shows average energy consumption of comparable units is cool, it has its consumption arrow about 15% below the low end of the bar.

edit for link

http://www.samsung.com/in/products/refrigerator/technicalinfo/index.htm

[mopinko]

21. not looking for a new fridge.

can't afford one.

[silverweb]

15. A TRULY efficient fridge would be chest style, not upright.

Everyone knows that all the cold air pours out every time you open the door.

One ingenious man retrofitted a chest freezer to make a really efficient fridge _here_. I wish someone would market something like this.

With some imaginative design, they could be installed as pull-out units under the counter with see-through, lift-out, divided sections. There are all kinds of ways refrigerators could be made much more energy efficient.

[mopinko]

19. this would entail remodeling kitchens

just to fit the new fridge. not gonna happen.

[silverweb]

22. I don't know.

I think an upright version, with pull-out drawers rather than one big door, could be adapted for existing kitchens and an under-counter version could be made for new kitchen designs.

Picture refrigerator drawers that slide out from under a central kitchen island -- or a standard-looking fridge that has a see-through door and slide-out drawers with solid sides and back so that minimal cold air is lost when one drawer is opened. The only down side to the latter is that you'd have to keep the refrig tidy if you worry about what the mother-in-law might think.

I think saying "never" is a bit shortsighted.

[mopinko]

23. if they were designed to fit into existing spaces, fine

but making room for a chest type fridge, even in new kitchens, will be hard. the only one that they will fit in is the mc mansion kind. i have a big kitchen, but i wouldn't give up my whole under counter cabinets for a fridge.
the drawer thing sounds fine. the glass door part is also fine. my mother in law is dead.

[silverweb]

25. It's doable.

With a little imagination and adaptability. Sorry(?) about your mother in law.

[mopinko]

26. nobody else was sorry about MIL

really, a vile and evil woman. not a single person shed a tear at her wake. only a thimble full of tears at her funeral.

[silverweb]

27. Understood.

I had one like that once, too.

[hunter]

17. You can save a lot of energy by not using a fridge.

I've lived that way, and it's not difficult, especially if you have animals. Left overs always make the dogs and pigs and chickens very happy!

Alas, I am now a more suburban sort of creature.

There are various sorts of custom refrigerator-freezers built the way you suggest, but they are very expensive.



This one sells for $2,199.

http://www.gaiam.com/retail/product/62133_MSTR

[mopinko]

20. not using a fridge

sorry, it is hard. it requires a full time wife, or some other sort of not real world commitment. i get a little annoyed by the constant suggestion about things like this. they seem to have an undercurrent of- back in the day when women knew their place, we didn't have these problems. like drying clothes on a clothes line. i barely have time to wash clothes at all.

[hunter]

28. I am not giving up my washer or dryer! I'm not that kinda guy.

But I do all the cooking and grocery shopping in our house.

Without a fridge I'd probably say good-bye to the meat and milk, but that would probably be healthy.

[jpak]

18. In the 20's, 30's and 40's many refrigerators had the compressor on top

The designs changed in the 50's to the "modern" box design with the compressor and coils hidden in the back and underneath.

Style won out over efficiency...

[mopinko]

24. don't know why

they couldn't have been hidden just as well on the top. maybe it has more to do with collecting the condensed water off the coils. right now that flows down into a tray to be evaporated by the waste heat from the compressor.

[happyslug]

30. About the time Gas Refrigerators disappeared.

My mother had a gas Refrigerators during the 1940s and 1950s (She had to give it up when she moved to an area without Natural Gas). Gas Refrigerators were more expensive electric refrigerators but operated at much lower costs (Gas was cheaper than electricity AND the absorption system is more efficient then the compression system making gas cold).

The Compression system uses the fact that when you compress gas to liquid, it releases heat. When you leave that liquid expands, it absorbs heat. Thus the compressor by forcing the a gaseous substance (Generally Freon, but can be any gas), into a liquid form, releasing heat (Thus most compressors feel hot, to the touch, it is NOT the compressor making it hot, but the lost of heat as the gas is compressed into a Liquid). The liquid travels to the back of the Refrigerators and than permitted to expand (by the simple expedite of being permitted to travel into larger pipes). This thus just cools the refrigerators.

The Absorption system (Still used on large Air conditioning units) is more complex than a Compression system, since you end up with three series of pipes instead of the one circuit of a Compression system. The first set is heated by the Natural gas to a high temperature, the third system runs in and out of the Refrigerator. The second system of pipes connects these other two systems of pipes. The Second System of Pipes has an area of expanding pipes (an Absorber) and an area of thinning pipes (The Compressor). The gas is driven by the heating and colling of the gases in the system (Through in some systems is is aided by electrical pumps). The absorption system takes the heat of the first system and uses it to expand the gas in the absorber in the Second set of pipes, then it runs that expanded gas through the "Compressor" in the second set of pipes, where the gas loses heat. The heat is regained by absorbing heat from the third system of pipes (Cooling those third set of pipes and thus providing the cooling wanted out of the system as a whole). The Third system of pipes then runs the now chilled air back to the refrigerator where it absorbs any heat inside the refrigerator.

Yes, it is a COMPLEX system, but it works and since the system has a minimum of moving parts (basically a gas flame drives most of the movement of the gases in most systems) it almost never goes bad. In fact you can adapt the system to a Solar hot Water system, where the hot water from the solar hot water system provides the heat instead of Natural Gas.

You have absorption A/C units today, but they are large and some of the old gas Refrigerators may still be found and used in a solar hot water system.

[mopinko]

32. my trailer fridge works on gas or elec

thank you for explaining how. i wondered about that.

[AZCat]

33. That doesn't sound right.

When you compress a gas, it does not release (or absorb) heat. It might change the temperature, but any heat transfer is driven by the temperature difference, not the compression itself. In fact, compressing a gas increases the "heat" because you are doing work on the substance - the enthalpy increases even if you have an ideal compressor.

[happyslug]

34. The key is the increase in heat.

As you compress a gas, the temperature goes UP. As you expand a gas, the temperature goes DOWN (thus when you get soda from a fountain, it is COLD right out of the fountain as the compress CO2 expands to provide the "Fizz" in the soda.

The same with the gas is Compressed, its temperature goes UP. Nature HATES temperatures extremes, so as you INCREASE (or Decrease) the temperature in one area, the area NEXT to it provides the HEAT.

While technically heat and temperature are NOT quite the same, there are close. Temperature being the MEASUREMENT HOW heat will transfer from one element to another, while HEAT is the measurement of the thermal energy in an element. For our purposes the more correct term is "Temperature" not heat since we are talking about transferring energy from one element to anther.

Pressure and temperature are related as set forth in "The Ideal Gas Law":

"The ideal gas law is the equation of state of an ideal gas. The state of an amount of gas is determined by its pressure, volume, and temperature. The equation has the form:

pV = nRT

where

\ p is the pressure,
\ V is the volume,
\ n is the number of moles of gas,
\ R is the gas constant, and
\ T is the temperature in kelvin or rankine."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law

Now, n and R are constant for any one gas, thus for a general discussion on Gas laws can be called equal to 1 and dropped out of the equation leaving the following:

pV=T

In a given closed system the volume of Gas is also constant and can be called 1 and dropped out of the equation (Unless you want the extant temperature which if you do you will also need to know the type of gas to get the moles of gas for that gas the and the Gas Constant for that gas, which for our discussion here is not needed). Thus the gas law becomes Pressure times a constant equals Temperature times a constant. Thus if you INCREASE Pressure Temperature will also increase, if you DECREASE pressure, Temperature will drop. Thus the Compressor INCREASES Pressure, Temperature MUST Drop, as the gas expands in the expansion tube, pressure goes down and so does Temperature.

For a definition of Temperature:
http://www.fastload.org/te/Temperture.html

For a definition of Heat:
http://www.fastload.org/he/Heat.html

[AZCat]

36. Thanks, but I'm pretty familiar with the concept.

Since this forum is read by laypeople, I think it is important not to use incorrect language when discussing technical topics - they're confusing enough already.

Unfortunately you've muddied things again with your explanation of the Ideal Gas Law as applied to our discussion. In a compressor, the quantity of a gas will be constant but the volume certainly won't be - changing the volume of the gas is exactly how a compressor accomplishes the "compression".

[mopinko]

38. nature hates temp extremes?

ok, it has been a long time since physics class, but i know there was nothing about nature or hate.
heat flows to the lower temperature (that is not the right word either, potential energy?) always. doesn't go both ways.
thanks for trying. it is hard to find the fine line between being accurate and being understandable.

[Massacure]

39. I believe the word you are looking for it entropy.

[happyslug]

29. Some Compressors are NOT design to operate upside down.

In fact prior to the 1980s, people were WARNED not to even transport refrigerators other then right side up for the oil in the Compressors would leak out (Many Refrigerators of the 1930-1980 period did NOT have sealed Compressors).

I suspect all compressors made since the 1980s are sealed (i.e. the oil inside the Compressors will NOT leak out if you sit the Refrigerators upside down), but that was NOT the case prior to the 1970s and the introduction of energy efficient Refrigerators.

[mopinko]

31. i assume

that the compressor would have to be turned over.

[happyslug]

35. That is why people even today are Told NOT to transport Refregerators...

Right side up at all time. Through I do not think this is a problem since the 1970s.

[mopinko]

37. not really

the only way to get my fridge in was on it's side. they just told me wait to plug it in for a little while.