I recently purchased the September, 1960, Consumer Reports on EBay. What fun to read these! Unlike today, regardless of whether one agrees with ratings, there is so much more comprehensive content than we ever see these days, where 'the beef' has been replaced with silly color photos and logos. We car lovers have seen exactly the same trend in car and motorcycle magazines.
I bought this issue because they test frostless refrigerator-freezer units. As they note, they were very new at the time; before then the freezers required defrosting. We're always reading on here about the quality of the washers and dryers back then; CR notes that nearly half of their purchased samples required service calls! As they state, this number far exceeded their calls for washers, which they say are traditionally the most trouble-prone of major appliances. They found that faulty operation of the fans was the most common problem, though intermittent melting of water on refrigerant tubes, defective timers and defective thermostats were also problems frequently seen. That, and as they stated, simply "slipshod assembly and inadequate quality control."
They state there are four types of freezer defrosting seen: 1) 24-hour timer, where it defrosts once daily, and optimally, that time can be set for the middle of the night when the home is cooler and no one is opening the freezer door. 2) 12-hour timer, which meant that one cycle would be during waking time. 3) defrosting when the compressor is running, on a timer. 4) defrosting according to the freezer door opening 20 times.
Does anyone here know how our modern freezer defrosting cycles work? I don't, that's for sure. I do know that, though my Whirlpool stays at roughly around zero as I have it set (have a thermometer in there) it does fluctuate some. and, as stated, stuff in the freezer door does stay warmer. When I used to keep a separate freezer, I purchased an upright and then replaced it with a chest because the temp fluctuated too much with the upright.
I bought this issue because they test frostless refrigerator-freezer units. As they note, they were very new at the time; before then the freezers required defrosting. We're always reading on here about the quality of the washers and dryers back then; CR notes that nearly half of their purchased samples required service calls! As they state, this number far exceeded their calls for washers, which they say are traditionally the most trouble-prone of major appliances. They found that faulty operation of the fans was the most common problem, though intermittent melting of water on refrigerant tubes, defective timers and defective thermostats were also problems frequently seen. That, and as they stated, simply "slipshod assembly and inadequate quality control."
They state there are four types of freezer defrosting seen: 1) 24-hour timer, where it defrosts once daily, and optimally, that time can be set for the middle of the night when the home is cooler and no one is opening the freezer door. 2) 12-hour timer, which meant that one cycle would be during waking time. 3) defrosting when the compressor is running, on a timer. 4) defrosting according to the freezer door opening 20 times.
Does anyone here know how our modern freezer defrosting cycles work? I don't, that's for sure. I do know that, though my Whirlpool stays at roughly around zero as I have it set (have a thermometer in there) it does fluctuate some. and, as stated, stuff in the freezer door does stay warmer. When I used to keep a separate freezer, I purchased an upright and then replaced it with a chest because the temp fluctuated too much with the upright.
