The American Fridge Freezers we all know and love today are the culmination of over one and a half centuries of development. It was in 1857, that an Australian named James Harrison made the first ice making machine as well as a refrigeration system. His invention was used in brewing and meat packing industries in the region of Victoria. Two years later a Frenchman named Ferdinand Carre came up with another design in 1859. Earlier designs had used air as a coolant, but this new method had rapidly expanding ammonia instead.
Absorption fridges were invented by Baltzar von Platen and Carl Munters in 1922 in Stockholm. They were studying together in the Royal Institute of Technology when they came up with the idea which was then taken worldwide by Electrolux. The first patent for a compact refrigerator was Carl von Linde. Before Von Linde came up with the practical model refrigerators were a two room affair with mechanical parts. The compressor and motor in a basement or a room next door to the kitchen where the cold box would be store food.
Apart from the size of these machines, there were other reasons why it was not practical to have one installed. The cost was astronomical and far beyond the reach of an average household. With the idea that preserving your food would save money on wastage it didn't make sense to make the investment. Really, only commercial enterprises that had them and they were used to store food before going to market.
It wasn't until 1927 that the use of the smaller units became popular. General Electric made a sulfur dioxide based refrigerator and actually produced over a million for the general public. With this model the public were finally able to practically refrigerate food in the house. There are still working models around but because of the danger that comes with sulfur dioxide it's illegal to refill them if they break down.
By the thirties, 60% of US Households had a home refrigeration unit but it was in the seventies before the same happened across Europe. Now this style of the American fridge freezers has been used around the world. The side by side design is instantly recognizable as many come with an ice dispenser at the front. It was in the forties that separate freezers were popularized but mass production was not immediate. It was after the end of world war two that they were in more and more households. The peoples uptake on the separate deep freeze system was helped by advances in defrosting which was now automatic.
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