Post by excoriator on Apr 23, 2021 11:07:32 GMT
Our fridge packed up yesterday. The new one, just ordered, will take a week to arrive "It's our own brand. We buy them from China!" but I recall the last time this happened about 15 years ago and adopted the same solution. It chose a good time to fail - December 23rd. No chance of a new fridge before the new year, so I cast my mind back to what people did before electric fridges were common. They used ice boxes.
An 'ice man' regularly delivered blocks of ice to his customers who used them to keep a well insulated cupboard and its contents cool. Even a dud fridge is a very well insulated cupboard so I froze water in the freezer using old plastic milk containers. These we put on the top shelf of the fridge and it worked brilliantly. I had and still have a small thermocouple based temperature sensor that allowed me to tape thermocouples to the inside and to my delight, this simple approach kept the temperature at about one centigrade. Fridges usually keep it at about five centigrade. I recall being surprised at how infrequently I had to refreeze my ice bottles too. Two of them lasted a couple of days or more.
So I have a few four pint plastic containers of water freezing in the freezer. This is a very good reason not to buy a 'fridge freezer' by the way.
We were easily able to resist buying a 'smart' fridge with a big flat screen on the door which allows you to see what's in your fridge on your smartphone from anywhere in the world. Be honest, how often have we seen people on the High Street gazing at their phones and crying out "My god! We're nearly out of lardons!" These extravagances have their uses though. We were still laughing at such lunacy when we got home!
An 'ice man' regularly delivered blocks of ice to his customers who used them to keep a well insulated cupboard and its contents cool. Even a dud fridge is a very well insulated cupboard so I froze water in the freezer using old plastic milk containers. These we put on the top shelf of the fridge and it worked brilliantly. I had and still have a small thermocouple based temperature sensor that allowed me to tape thermocouples to the inside and to my delight, this simple approach kept the temperature at about one centigrade. Fridges usually keep it at about five centigrade. I recall being surprised at how infrequently I had to refreeze my ice bottles too. Two of them lasted a couple of days or more.
So I have a few four pint plastic containers of water freezing in the freezer. This is a very good reason not to buy a 'fridge freezer' by the way.
We were easily able to resist buying a 'smart' fridge with a big flat screen on the door which allows you to see what's in your fridge on your smartphone from anywhere in the world. Be honest, how often have we seen people on the High Street gazing at their phones and crying out "My god! We're nearly out of lardons!" These extravagances have their uses though. We were still laughing at such lunacy when we got home!
