Hard to believe its 2011 and someone hasn't invented a better refrigerator design yet

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/home/sc-home-0627-diy-fridge-upkeep-20110701,0,3214379.story

Helping your fridge keep its cool

By Mike McClintock, Special to Tribune Newspapers

July 1, 2011

<snip>Electricity powers a compressor that pumps refrigerant through coils of pipes that provide cooling and exhaust heat. No one has come up with a workable design that exhausts the warm air outside like an air conditioner, or brings in cold air in winter so the compressor doesn't have to work as hard. And from an energy efficiency perspective, it's crazy paying for electricity to maintain a fridge temperature below 40 degrees when it's below freezing outside.

It doesn't make much sense to produce heat just below a compartment you want to keep cool, either. But that's the arrangement — and why it makes a difference to keep the operating guts of the system working efficiently. As a practical matter, that means free of accumulated dust that retards temperature transfer, makes the compressor work harder, shortens its life, and drives up the electric bill. If you haven't pulled out the fridge and looked back there for a few years, especially if you have cats or dogs that shed, be prepared to find a blanket clogging the inlets.

[Mist]

1. Didn't the old ones with the rounded tops work better than the "streamlined" models

that started coming out (IIRC) in the '60s? Something about having the motor on top make them work better.

[trud]

2. old ones

that's what I was wondering too.

[trud]

3. actually this reminds me

of being in college in Mass and we'd put food outside on the ledges in the winter.

[kentauros]

4. Interestingly, many restaurant refrigerators

have top-mounted compressors. So, it's still used, just maybe not in the home as much.

You'd think, though, what with all the HGTV-style kitchen remodels that they'd put in restaurant refrigerators with the compressor on top. But I guess having a panel that's vented across the top doesn't look good. And that aversion to function over style seems to carry a lot of weight on down the line to regular old refrigerator design...