Time to enter the frost-free age

[moparguy]

I am excited to show my new frost-free Westinghouse fridge... an estate sale, the fridge has a bit of rust from basement storage, but is amazingly complete... even the "W" logo on the trays above the drawers, the butter container in the butter compartment above the freezer, and the blue egg holders on the inside of the door. They thought of everything! And it works! Now time for some major cleaning...

 

[moparguy]

The interior shot...

I believe that the button to the right of the butter door counts the number of times that the refrigerator door is openned, to trigger the defrost cycle... but someone please tell me if I have that wrong!

 

[norgeway]

Yes!

That is correct, You will be amazed how much better that fridge will keep your food, especially meats and produce no silly fan to dry out your food!!!

 

[washer111]

Nice!

A bit of elbow grease, and she'll be sparklin. And will probably be better at frost-free than your modern appliances!

A nice, moist cold refrigerator section, that defrosts each "OFF" cycle (When the thermostat is satisfied, as they say) and a Freezer, defrosting only as needed, depending on the door openings. Now tell me, does this model just "turn off" the compressor, fire up an electric element, or does it fire up the element whilst the motor is in operation?

Another point about the freezer's frost free system - you may wish to "invent" some sort of wire basket to fit inside the freezer, so stuff does get freezer burn from defrosts and such (unless that isn't a problem).

 

[combo52]

Early WH FF Refrigerator

This system counted door openings and activated an electric heater which caused the frost to melt and run down a drain system. Yes there was not fan, now the bad part, cooling was very uneven, and when these defrosted the water dripped all over the food in the freezer and everything partly defrosted and refroze together, LOL. This type of FF refrigerator was not tried by many companies and was abandoned by WH, it would never fly today.

 

[danemodsandy]

I Love....

....How the door is set up to accommodate both left- and right-hand hinging. It's not a reversible door as we think of them today, but it was adaptable to factory orders for either hand, which wasn't the case with every make or model then.

 

[moparguy]

Thanks for the comments... and insights! I do have a 'modern' frost free in the kitchen, this fridge will be my working frost free in the collection. I will enjoy keeping beverages and food ready for the grill to be chilled... and test out the operation of this frost free system all while showing stylish lines and flashy trim! I had not noticed that the door could be reversed, but that makes sense with the placement of the "W" logo where the handle would go for the reverse hinge. And in case you were curious about that 'butter keeper' compartment and container, here is one more photo... A hidden secret compartment above the freezer!

 

[arbilab]

The I Love Lucy model IINM. Same cabinet anyway, not absolutely certain Lucy's was FF. We had the one immediately after, with the power door unlatch. Lucy had it too briefly but she went back to the handle model. Likely because if the stagehands forgot to plug it in, it wouldn't open.

 

[moparguy]

So would you all say that this is about a 1954-55?

 

[fester]

Awsome !!!

That is one snazzy fridge!
Stuff like that is sooooo rare in South Louisiana. There are no basements, so unless it's stored in a huge barn or tightly closed, dry shed, the heat and humidity just rust things into the ground. I guess I'll be going on a road trip up north for appliances one day.

Some TOL paint with just a hint of pearl would render the sweetest non stock "factory" finish ever! The right lighting and "time to hit the road to dreamland"!!

SWEET!

FEster

 

[gansky1]

Oh so pretty! I've never seen the butter vault - very nice. You'll have to tell us how the butter keeps.

Do you have pictures of your collection posted somewhere?

 

[pulltostart]

This one appears to be very similar, if not the same model.

lawrence

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/app/3279026565.html

 

[norgeway]

That Fridge..

Is a 51 or 52,The 53 was the electric door model, as for food keeping...it will be leagues ahead of modern frost free fridges, anytime you blow air over food,1 you dry it out and 2 ,you carry odors such as fish to other foods such as pie or cake...3 the meat keeper is exactly where it should be,under the freezer in the coldest spot,4 it has a compressor that is big enough to have plenty of reserve cooling power, in a modern air conditioned house it will basically just idle along, remember, in those days very few people had ac, these fridges were designed to work in very hot conditions, put a modern fridge in a kitchen with a wood cookstove and see if it can keep your ice cream frozen...NOT!

 

[moparguy]

Cool! A little older than I had thought, but it certainly aged well! I doubt many new fridges would have looked this good after 60 years and basement storage!

I have posted a few other photos of my collection in various posts, but among other things, I don't know how to 'shrink' my photos so that they don't clog up Robert's server space or take too long to download, lol... I enjoy mostly the 50s ranges and fridges, with a couple newer and older...

 

[moparguy]

A few more details and information...

So with a day at home in the rain, time to search for more information, here is what I was able to find from a 1951 Westinghouse refrigerator brochure (probably a year earlier as there are a few trim differences, which would make mine the 1952 model). I hope you enjoy!

Westinghouse promoted this as the 'worlds first completely automatic refrigerator' that counts door openings. At every 60th opening, the refrigerator defrosts. According to Westinghouse, that is why 'there are no complicated mechanisms, no clocks or timers, no exposed heating coils'.

Although the brochure does not mention if the door is reverseable, it does promote the 3-way handle 'it practically opens the door for you'... and operates by moving it to the left, right, or pulled.

And Westinghouse also promoted that its butter keeper 'keeps your butter always just right for easy spreading in an attractive covered shatter-proof plastic serving dish that will graciously complement your table setting' (well, it was the 50s, so advertising was able to take a few liberties... nice as it may be, it might not go with the fine china).

No mention of colors being available yet

 

[danemodsandy]

So-Called "Reversible" Door

Um, folks -

I never said this model had a reversible door in the sense we mean that today.

What I was saying was that this door was set up so that the factory could hinge (meaning hang on permanent hinges the consumer could not switch to the other side) on either side, without resorting to two different door stampings for right- and left-hand models.

Getting a refrigerator with a door hinged at the left used to be a Great Big Hairy Huge Intergalactic Ginormous Deal, as in special order, wait time, not available on every model, and usually no sale pricing.

 

[moparguy]

Sorry, my mistake in the wording, I didn't mean that you had meant reverse hinging like the V handle or a quick consumer-change... but I thought maybe they would have noted in the brochure that their door design would made the 'special order' left hinging quicker or easier since the stampings were the same. And you are right that it is so hard to find a vintage fridge with left hinging!

 

[danemodsandy]

Jeff:

I'd be willing to bet the mechanism for that magic three-way handle is designed to be used on either side of the door, too. A difference in mounting position, probably.

My dad was with RCA for virtually all his career, which meant he had to learn appliances as well as electronics during the "RCA Whirlpool" years. Reefer door handles and their mechanisms were a major bugbear for part of that time (until magnetic latches came in), failure-prone and expensive - eating warranty money like crazy. I can't imagine a company wanted to produce two different mechanisms for different door hands.

 

[kimball455]

WH Auto Defrost

We had one of these Westinghouse Frost Free Refrigerators at my Grandmothers house where I grew up. It did indeed thaw everything enough to freeze everything back into clumps when the defrost cycle was finished. If you pushed the button all the way in it would start the defrost cycle even if there were not enought door open/close cycles. I think it took 60 open/close to start the automatic cycle. In the summer the humidity caused you to do a 'real' defrost to get rid of the accumlation of ice. It did drain into a pan under the compressor and in the summer it was not uncommon for ours at least to overflow. I thought the butter safe was a really neat idea.
Harry