View Single Post
  #32   Report Post  
Posted to alt.home.repair
[email protected] hallerb@aol.com is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,199
Default 1950s Chest Freezer Refurbish

On Feb 25, 11:13�am, Smitty Two wrote:
In article , "cybercat"
wrote:





This might be OT--is there an alt.refurbish.old appliances?


We have a cool old freezer, a GE Hotpoint 20 that came with our house. I
love it! It still works great, and I like old stuff. It matches the 1949
fridge in the same utility room, enamel and chrome, very cool. (Also ...
both have run nonstop for the ten years we have had this house, whereas the
new, plastic and crap side-by-side we bought five years ago lasted three
years.)


Thing is, condensation has made the top of it rust. The former owner
obviously did some repainting or something at some point, but it has rusted
through again.
I have it defrosted and cleaned, opened up and drying out now.


If you were going to refinish the top of this thing, how would you do it? I
want to really seal the rust the best I can, then paint white like the rest
of the thing.


Thank you in advance for any help.


To those who are touting energy efficiency of newer appliances, here is
a little refresher: Energy efficiency in refrigerators and freezers is
mostly about insulation. The really old appliances, such as yours, were
actually made with a fair amount of insulation. Then along came the
1970's, an era when American manufacturers decided that cheaper was
better.

So the wall thickness declined, reducing insulation thickness. A very
important ancillary benefit was that the interior volume of a
refrigerator could be increased, without increasing its outside
dimensions. That was a hot selling feature.

Now this decreased insulation thickness had a pesky side effect, besides
making the cooling system run all day long: The outside of the
refrigerators became cold, and condensate started to form. Who wants a
fridge that's wet on the outside?

Engineering to the rescue. Let's put a *heating* coil just inside the
outer shell, to keep it warm and dry. Yep, that worked, but it also
leaked heat into the inside of the fridge, making it run even longer
than it would have with the reduced wall thickness alone. Now, we have a
complete formula for maximum energy inefficiency.

After a short time, as you'll recall, there came a period of energy
awareness, and everyone wanted to save it. Not wanting to appear
indifferent, the refrigerator manufacturers concocted a new "feature." A
little switch that turned the heating coil off. They called that switch
the "energy saver" switch, remember? And the instructions said, if
moisture forms on the outside of the fridge, turn "energy saver" off -
IOW, turn heater on.

Now fast forward, to the new breed of "energy efficient" appliances. The
insulation thickness has been increased again, the heating coil is gone.
A miracle of modern engineering? No, a return to common sense.

People living "off the grid" buy refrigerators that have about a foot of
insulation, and they run for virtually nothing by comparison, because
there's no heat loss.

(My first real job, back in '73, was working on the assembly line of a
major refrigerator manufacturer. I took the outer cabinets fresh from
the spray painting room, and installed the heating coil. Bent it by
hand, and stuck it in there with little wads of clay in the corners. My
friend worked at the tail end of the line, smearing white toothpaste
over the scratches just before crating the beasts.)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


new appliances also used closed cell foam insulation which is way
better than fiberglass and more efficent compressors etc,.

its not just a matter of a heter or insulation thickness