Posted by Bruce A Clarke on April 26, 2001 at 04:12:26 from 203.101.128.62:
In Reply to: Re: Enlarging a bit more on what Bruce, Patrick, & Robert. have said.... posted by Robert Hill on April 25, 2001 at 10:43:12:
The butchers etc had refrigerators in the 20's and onwards but these were refrigeraters which generally used ammonia as the refrigerant. As a result the compressor unit was big and bulky and was frequently mounted in an exterior well ventilated location, away from the refrigerator itself or in the 30's on the top of the refrigerator chest. All had large fans behind the cooling coils of the compressor to blow air over these so the ammonia could be cooled for recompression. It was not until the "sealed unit " compressors using Freon 40 (now banned as an ozone destroyer) as the refrigerant, became available that the home refrigerator grew in size and common use.
The gas, kerosene and early electric refrigerators used a great deal of heat in a direct inversion process to chill a small area and the old domestic refrigerators were only about 3-5 cubic feet in capacity. Beckfoot as an affluent home of the age may have had a direct inversion refrigerator running on kerosene, the same oil they would have used for the house lanterns.