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Chest Fridge (2009)

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Re: Chest Fridge (2009)

#61

Post by b112 »

decimalenough wrote: post #56
pierrec wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that is the coolest fridge I've ever seen. Found a video of it in action (yes, featuring the same dad joke all over the comments but that is not stopping me): https://youtu.be/RoGuvvzHY1A?t=416 That entire place is mind-bending.

Mind-bending indeed, but looks pretty impractical. In an ordinary fridge, if your egg carton is a bit out of place, your door may not close properly. In this one, you're going to have liquid omelette slathered all over the place, and how do you even clean the bottom of that thing?

Well, it's a prototype. Any production model would need to watch for fingers too, so it'd have to be gentle.

Just as elevator doors won't crush a person due to sensors and such.

The cleaning part is an interesting question.

Re: Chest Fridge (2009)

#62

Post by Tepix »

Idea: If you have a vertical fridge on your countertop and you change the door so that it slides down and the cold air stays inside the part of the fridge still closed by the door, you could sort the things in your fridge by frequency of accessing them.

Re: Chest Fridge (2009)

#63

Post by 0wis »

Tepix wrote: post #60
calmbonsai wrote: post #58

This only makes practical sense if your energy costs are exorbitant compared to the western industrialized world and you don't care about cold-storage volume relative to room square footage and/or ready access to stored items. Thus, vertical refrigerators and freezers absolutely dominate.

They are quite popular on sailboats.

For exactly the same reason : space is scarce but power even more. Power can also become unavailable in a degraded situation much often than on land. Therefore, it is a better design choice to have a chest freezer.

In a city appartement where floor space is scarce, convenience is a key feature and power costs barely nothing, it is a less obvious choice.

Re: Chest Fridge (2009)

#64

Post by ghaff »

KPGv2 wrote: post #43
tshaddox wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that inconvenience could be manageable depending on how full the fridge is and what sort of organizing features it has. It’s already pretty inconvenient to get something out of the back of a traditional fridge that is completely full.

Yeah, my in-laws literally stand around the fridge with it open for multiple minutes while they shuffle food around to get to things they've tetrised into the back, and then to re-organize once they've gotten what they need. They periodically live with us because they're quite old at this point, and my wife and I have already discussed replacing our fridge/freezer combo with a standalone fridge and switching solely t…

I find French door refrigerators work well. The bottom compartment makes it pretty easy to see everything.

I do have an upright freezer in the basement. If I ever needed to replace it I’d probably get a chest freezer.

Re: Chest Fridge (2009)

#65

Post by OJFord »

frogulis wrote: post #40
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally don't understand this comment at all. What point are you trying to make?

They seem to have mixed up horizontal and vertical, and if they did, then my reading is that they're saying the cost of the extra floor space (and the loss of the "shelf" space on top of the fridge) when using a chest fridge makes the economics unfavourable for people in dense urban areas, even with the energy savings. At least, I'm hoping that's what they meant. If they really meant horizontal and vertical in the wa…

I didn't get it until reading your comment, but I think perhaps they meant 'vertical' as in 'it opens vertically' (chest freezer)—i.e. they didn't mix them up exactly, just used them differently than we expected.

Re: Chest Fridge (2009)

#66

Post by Freak_NL »

pierrec wrote: post #49
doughecka wrote: post #37

Reminds me of Fly Away Home with the round fridge that would lift out of the counter. True story: "The refrigerator is round, rising from under the granite countertop with the touch of the button. “The pneumatic fridge works with air compression,” she says. “You step on the button and it pops up and the racks spin like a lazy Susan. Cold air is heavy so it stays cold.”" https://www.thestar.com/life/home-and-garden/pa…

Now that is the coolest fridge I've ever seen. Found a video of it in action (yes, featuring the same dad joke all over the comments but that is not stopping me): https://youtu.be/RoGuvvzHY1A?t=416 That entire place is mind-bending.

The idea is nice, but one thing I use a refrigerator for constantly is putting rectangular things in there. A box of cake, half of the lasagne left over in its oven dish, various containers, et cetera. Even cartons of milk and yoghurt have a square or oblong horizontal plane. Those round shelves are ideal for cilinders with a small diameter; bottles of condiment and beer, basically.

Re: Chest Fridge (2009)

#67

Post by Freak_NL »

Tepix wrote: post #62

Idea: If you have a vertical fridge on your countertop and you change the door so that it slides down and the cold air stays inside the part of the fridge still closed by the door, you could sort the things in your fridge by frequency of accessing them.

The door of a fridge is usually used for a lot of frequently used items. Eggs, milk, butter, and what have you. You would have to address losing that in terms of convenience and storage space.

Re: Chest Fridge (2009)

#68

Post by [deleted] »

tempestn wrote: post #47
frogulis wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what makes me think they've simply mixed up horizontal and vertical, because you can't (conveniently) store things on top of a chest fridge, but you can store things on top of a vertical fridge. Basically I think they've got a coherent point if you swap vertical and horizontal throughout their whole comment.

I'm also wondering if "freezing" was meant to be "freeing".

[deleted]

Re: Chest Fridge (2009)

#69

Post by bdbdbdb »

I read this back in 2009, happy to see it's still on the internet.

Obviously with today's electricity prices it would use more than $5 per year but even doubled it is extremely cheap.

My issue with the concept is space and convenience. My upright fridge is about this size but it would take up too much space in my kitchen on its side. Worse again that you can't keep anything on top because that's where the door is.

But more crucially, with a chest freezer you can only easily access the stuff on top. If something is a few levels down you have to move a lot of stuff to access it. I wish they came with shelves that cantilevered out like a toolbox, or a vertical lid on rails that lifted like a drawer

Re: Chest Fridge (2009)

#70

Post by Freak_NL »

tempestn wrote: post #38
wiskinator wrote: post #36

Ohhh the links at the bottom of this guys site are wild and good reading. https://thiaoouba.com/ Please note I am disputing his science on the efficacy of a vertical fridge.

I dispute the convenience, but I think the science has been tested. When you open a regular fridge, because cold air is denser than warm air, much of the cold air immediately falls out, so the fridge needs to work to re-chill the air once you close it. Even when it isn't opened, some amount of cold air leaks out the seals toward the bottom of the fridge (and warmer air leaks in through the top). Chest fridge (or free…

The science here is also perfectly backed by empiric evidence. Just measure the kWh used in a year and compare. It doesn't really matter how a chest fridge is more efficient, it just is.

The convenience is not as easy to quantify, but I would bet that an experiment would quickly point out that chest fridges are terrible for elderly, children, and anyone with reduced mobility. I'd hypothesise that even able bodied people would get annoyed when they are cooking — I know I would be.

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