What it costs to run a refrigerator in your home depends as much on you as on the refrigerator you select. The way the refrigerator is used will influence greatly its cost of operation

Peet, Louise J

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What it costs to run a refrigerator in your home depends as much on you as on the refrigerator you select. The way the refrigerator is used will influence greatly its cost of operation.</p

Peet, Louise

Digital Repository @ Iowa State University (ISU)

U S Ey o u rREFRIGERATORECONOMICALLYHAT IT COSTS to run a refrigerator in your home depends as much on you as on the refrigerator you select. The way the refrigerator is used will influence greatly its cost of op­eration.Today, both ice and mechani­cal refrigerators look very much alike so far as the construction of the box is concerned. And whether they’re cooled with ice, electricity, gas or kerosene, all of them do a good job. The type to choose will depend on where you live, whether you have nat­ural gas or electricity in your home, whether ice is easily avail­able, or whether kerosene’s the solution.Initial cost will influence you, too—in recent years electric re­frigerators have been greatly re-14By LOUISE J. PEETduced in price. The less expen­sive models are as well con­structed as the more costly, but they don’t  have all the special features. Appearing on the mar­ket are large refrigerators with flexible shelf arrangement for the storage of large containers in the rural homes. An 8-cubic- foot refrigerator uses very little more gas or electricity than a 6- cubie-foot.The newer refrigerators are less expensive to operate. The electric refrigerator ordinarily uses from 18 to 22 kilowatt hours a month; the older ones use 40 kilowatt hours or more. Gas refrigerators of 6-6%-cubic-foot capacity average 1,400 cubic feet of natural gas of 1,000 Btu content when running full flame and only about one-third this amount at minimum flame. It probably would pay to buy a new mechanical refrigerator if your present one is fairly old.The national defense emer­gency doubtless will affect re­frigerator production. Not only may fewer refrigerators be available to the consumer, but models doubtless will not change much during the emergency.There just isn’t  any compari­son between the old and new ice refrigerators. The new ice re­frigerators ice from the top. The air simply circulates across the bottom surface of the ice. An almost constant temperature is maintained so long as a sheet ofIice covers the rack, and re-icing is necessary only every 5 to 7 days. Five to six hundred pounds of ice is required per month.Most refrigerators are made of wood or steel with an external surface of enamel baked on. Some of the more expensive models may be finished in porce­lain enamel but the “organic” enamels are very satisfactory. They are chip and scratch-proof and will retain their original white color. The floor of the food chamber is porcelain enam­el and frequently the entire lining is of the same material. Steel frames are more rigid than wood and allow joints to be weld­ed securely to prevent moisture from penetrating the insulation. Before the finish is applied, the steel is treated to make it rust resistant.Different makes of refrigera­tors feature certain specialties which add to the convenience or attractiveness of the machine, but are not always essential. An interior light may be automatic­ally switched on as the door is opened. The door may be open­ed by hand or simply by pushing the arm against it—certainly convenient if one’s hands are full. Sliding shelves which do not tip when pulled out permit easy access to foods. Adjustable shelves accommodate containers of varying sizes, allow the stor­age of a turkey or, in summer, a watermelon.Some models have a bin or cellaret compartment a t the bot­tom in front of the motor and condensing coils, made possible because the coils are smaller and more compact in the newer models. In the bin, root vege­tables and fruits may be stored, and even beverages not needing constant refrigeration. In at least one model this lower com­partment is refrigerated, which gives extra storage space and may be used for milk, jars of fruit and other food in tall bottles.Most of the new refrigerators have a much larger freezing unit to accommodate frozen foods from the store or from the lock­er at the locker plant. Some re­frigerators have their own freez­ing locker which will hold 50 pounds of food at a temperature of 10° F.Food compartments are wider and shallower than they used to be. That fact, along with the sliding shelves, makes it a lot easier to reach the bowl or dish at the back of the shelf. The doors are of better design and frequently are lined with Bake- lite which, as you know from its use as handles on pots and fry­ing pans, is an excellent insulat­ing material. Some ice cube trays have shelf releases and a type of ejector for freeing the cubes from the sections, one at a time or by the trayful. Most of the units are sealed in, too— that is, the motor and condens­ing coils are under one housing.Tests were made in the house­hold equipment laboratories at Iowa State College to determine what affected the temperature in the food compartment. It was found that the refrigerator door should be opened for as short a time and as infrequently as pos­sible to prevent the temperature from rising excessively.The food chamber should not be overloaded. If the food con­tainers are placed too closely to­gether the cool air cannot circu­late between them. Anything which hinders efficient circula­tion retards refrigeration. Ice, for example, should not be cov­ered. I t is the melting of the ice which cools the food chamber.Heat always flows from a warm to a cool body. When food at room temperature is placed inside the refrigerator the warmth it contains diffuses into the surrounding a i r  w h i c h  circulates toward the ice or mechanical u n i t .As the air passes over the ice or unit, the heat is absorbed.In the ice refrig-Oiled silk bags and covered containers prevent refrigerator dehydration.erator the coldest place is the down drop of air from the ice chamber. In the top-icer ice re­frigerator this place may be on the top shelf of the food com­partment directly under the opening through which the cold air falls. In some models, how­ever, it is the center of the chamber floor. The coldest lo­cation in the mechanical refrig­erator, outside the unit sleeve, is immediately below the unit. Milk and meat should be put in the coldest place. The wannest sections are those through which the air circulates just before passing over the ice or unit.In some of the new ice refrig­erators tested the ice cake only covered the rack completely for the first day or two after re­icing. Then as the ice continued to melt the rack gradually be­came uncovered for several inches on each side of the cake, allowing the air to circulate over the entire surface of the ice. Under these conditions the temp­erature rose, sometimes to 50° or above. Chipping the ice which remained on the rack, to form a bed of crushed ice on which the new cake was placed, slowed up this process, and is therefore recommended.We usually set the upper limit for temperatures in a refrigera­tor at 50°. There is nothing magic about the 50°, however. Yeasts and molds and the even more undesirable bacteria are not going to be vigorous and active above 50° and a t 49° quietly abandon their bad be­havior and die. It isn’t  as simple as that. Most refrigerators15maintain maximum tempera­tures below 50°. In the mechani­cal refrigerator the average temperature is usually about 42°. Lower temperatures than 42° are not essential unless we are storing foods easily suscep­tible to spoilage for 10 days or more.We have talked a lot about temperature for food preserva­tion, but only recently have we begun to consider the part which humidity plays, although commercial cold storage plants have realized its importance. Cold air will hold less moisture than warm air, but foods stored uncovered at any temperature will tend to dry out unless the relative humidity is approxi­mately 100 percent—in other words, unless the air is saturated with water vapor.Placing warm foods in a re­frigerator and frequent or leng­thy opening of the door will cause an increase in relative hu­midity of 10 to 25 percent. Since cold air can hold less moisture than warm* air, the excess mois­ture in the ice refrigerator will be deposited with the film of ice meltage when the air circulates over the cake of ice and will be carried away through the drain pipe. In the mechanical refrig­erator, however, the excess moisture is deposited as frost on the unit. This makes defrosting necessary much more frequent­ly during the warm, humid sum­mer months, and is further argu­ment for opening the door as seldom as possible.Refrigerator manufacturers have tried to solve the humidity problem in various ways. Those marketing ice refrigerators be­lieve that the presence of the melting ice supplies sufficient moisture. For some years the manufacturers of mechanical re­frigerators have provided con­tainers to preserve the crispness of succulent vegetables.More recently some refrigera­tor^ have been divided into two compartments—one containing the cooling unit as usual and storage space for milk, meats, frozen foods, and extra ice cubes; the other with additional coils between the walls permit­ting high humidity for preserva­tion of fruits and vegetables without the necessity of cover­ing any but the most succulent. A minimum of air circulates in this second section, because it is the circulaton of air which re­moves the moisture.Extensive tests in our labora­tories at the College have shown that fresh succulent vegetables unless protected with a skin should be covered in all types of refrigerators—ice and mechani­cal. Vegetables containing a high percentage of water, such as lettuce and celery, keep best when stored tightly covered; others—beans, carrots, radishes, and so forth, are stored prefer­ably in a ventilated container.Containers are of various kinds. There are hydrators of porcelain enamel, with or with­out openings for ventilation. The openings may be round holes on the sides or slender slits in the cover, or the cover may simply fit loosely enough to allow a slight amount of air to circulate. Some hydrators even have hu­midity controls — a series of shutters on the sides of the pan, which are opened to different de­grees by setting the pointer on the dial to the mark for one- fourth, one-half or full, accord­ing to the amount of food stored. If the pan has only a little food in it, the shutters must be nearly closed to prevent evaporation.Glass covered dishes in a va­riety of shapes and sizes may be purchased in a hardware store or dime store. Bags are of oiled silk or pliofilm with zip­per or slide fastenings. Covers of the same materials with elas­tic edges may be used over bottles and bowls.Celery and lettuce should be rinsed in water and allowed to drain; root vegetables, scrubbed clean and wrapped in a towel un­til most of the moisture is ab­sorbed. The water which still clings to the vegetables will tend to saturate the air in the contain­er and prevent dehydration. If there is only a small amount of food to be stored, a small con­tainer is recommended since the air in it is more easily saturated. Excess water on the floor of thecontainer causes spoilage and should be avoided.Hydrators should be carefully washed and dried before a fresh supply of vegetables is put in them. Peas may be shelled and the ends may be removed from green beans before storage, but they should not be washed. Leafy vegetables often are more crisp at the end of 24 hours of storage than they are when placed in the refrigerator.Raw meat should be covered lightly with waxed paper—and that is a good way to store cook­ed meat, too. Other protein foods, milk and cheese are al­ways covered. Peaches, apricots, strawberries and similar fruits keep better if stored in venti­lated containers, but plums and pears, like tomatoes, are pro­tected by their skins against de­hydration. Strongly flavored fruits and vegetables such as cantaloupe and cabbage tend to contaminate the air of the re­frigerator and should be stored in covered containers or be wrapped in waxed paper if it is necessary to put them into the refrigerator. Leftovers remain fresh longer if stored covered, unless your refrigerator has the high humidity compartment.Some general suggestions for the economical use of a refrig­erator are:Leave spaces on shelves be­tween containers to allow free circulation of air.Store foods covered to prevent drying out and excess collection of moisture on unit.Defrost when frost is about one-fourth inch thick.Open door as infrequently as possible. ■ -Remove all waste parts, such as carrot tops, celery tops, pea pods before storing. There is no need to refrigerate what will later be thrown away.Cool most foods to room temperature before placing in food chamber.Remove water in drip pan at end of defrosting to prevent fresh deposit on unit.A refrigerator is a worth­while investment. It reduces spoilage, frequently improves flavor of foods, and saves the time and energy of the home­maker.

Use Your Refrigerator Economically

https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&amp;context=farmsciencereporter

Use Your Refrigerator Economically

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Digital Repository @ Iowa State University (ISU)