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Is it something with the window? Or is the refrigerator door on backwards? That handle on the tilt out drawer on the bottom of the fridge looks fishy.
 
I'll Tell....

....That's a 1948 Servel.

Which is a gas refrigerator - a damned unusual thing to install in a garage. Especially against a long outside wall close to the door, and on a concrete floor. I mean, where's the gas run?

I'll bet the prop guys had conniptions when they jackassed that thing into place, unless it had been gutted of its works.
 
Those handle bars seem to be floating in the air in front of that dark green spot behind the handle bars. It's like the picture has been retouched.
 
OK. I thought the fridge looked odd but I couldn't quite figure it out. The badge on the front of the fridge at the middle top looked different but I couldn't see it well enough to tell.
 
Easy Explanation.

The missus got a newfangled electric fridge and the hubby and the boys just herced it to the garage incase the newfangled fridge died. That way they would have a replacement.

Or the Sears delivery guys did not offer free removal in the 60's....
 
I wouldn’t find it odd to see an old Servel installed in a garage. Heaters, water heaters and dryers were commonly installed in garages; running a new gas line from one of them to the refrigerator would have cost very little. Servels were famously long-lived and reliable refrigerators, my great aunt and uncle had one for well over 40 years. I suspect most of them were replaced not due to failures but rather due to the desire for a larger refrigerator with more modern features. In that circumstance it would have made good sense to keep the old Servel around if a garage refrigerator was desired.
 
It's not surprising to see gas service in a garage around here every once in a great while.  The neighbors who live through the alley from my late paternal grandparents home have a natural gas line into their garage, and a wall furnace in there as well.  Mr. Fenske used to do light mechanic work, and wanted to not have to fiddle with wood heat.  Makes sense to me.
 
HA!  I thought the refrigerator was a Norge with the clock in the door...  Shame on me.  

 

BUT also in that first series, and I did write to the producers about it, Betty Draper's Mixmaster on the counter is one of the 'MM' series that were only introduced in 1965.    Just sayin.... 
 
Weeeell....

I'll never say never, but I have never personally seen a gas line run to the point furthest from the house in a detached garage.

I would also call B.S. on the vinyl-covered Romex wiring visible here; braided cloth-covered cable was used up through the '50s at least, and the Draper manse in Ossining (actually a location in Pasadena) was not a new house when Betty and Don bought it. [this post was last edited: 11/17/2014-10:10]
 
lamont:

Mad Men had a very substantial set budget, which got more substantial as time went on. The problem is, the set people were dealing with the trickiest period of all - the recent past.

It's comparatively easy to do Civil War or medieval stuff, because you're creating a world that is very different from our own - mistakes jump out at you.

But the '60s had so much in common with our own era that it's easy to forget to check every last little thing - it's hard to remember that traffic signs were often different than today's, Smokador urn-type ashtrays were seen in grocery stores, food cans had a top and a bottom seam, etc.

And it's easy to fall into the trap of assumptions. On Matlock, which is set in my native Atlanta but which was filmed mostly in L.A., all the cars have lovingly-replicated Georgia license plates, accurate in every detail. Except that the California prop guys didn't know that Georgia doesn't use front plates like their state does, so they put their handiwork on the front and rear bumpers of every vehicle, at least until Atlanta newspapers started razzing them about it. It probably never occurred to anyone to check, because front and rear plates are just "the way it is" in most places.
 
Storage Shed or Garage?

I noticed that with the refrigerator placed where it is you can't open the door all the way. The refrigerator blocks part of the door's swing. If you tried to open that door all the way the refrigerator would block the doors path.

If this were a storage shed, it would limit what you could put in the garage. Of course if it was a garage you would always be able to use the garage door. But we don't have enough information in this photo to make that determination.
 
Grundig console

In an episode during the first season the Drapers get a brand new Grundig stereo console. When Betty turns it on the radio sound comes on instantly. Wrong! Grundig didn't have solid state consoles until the very late sixties, if not early seventies.
 
Servel Gas Refrigerator

Actually this is a good appliance placement for a 1960 workshop-garage. The 1948 Servel would have been about 12 years old, which was a pretty accurate time for a newer model to have replaced it because of features like a zero degree freezer, and because it was still working and refs were expensive so they hooked it up in the garage to keep his beer in.

This was also the perfect place for a stinky gas ref that ran you out of the kitchen with excess heat in the summer in this time before A/C was popular.

Sandy you would be very surprised at the number of garages in the Midwest that have natural gas run to them, if people are working on cars in them. Even around here this is very common, I know many people do it so they can have a gas furnace in the garage that comes on an hour or two before you have to go to work, this is the perfect way to warm up car.

White Romex wiring was also around in the 1950s, it is in my 1955 Sears catalog.

Overall on these two points at least the set designers deserve credit for keeping it real.
 
John:

I just don't agree. The scenario you posit could happen, but I feel it's like the idea that Bigfoot could be out there; I'd want to see more information. I can say that I've never in all my life seen a gas fridge used as a garage fridge, and I've been all over this country and I'm 62 years old.

The Draper house is not, if you'll look at the show, a '50s house. It has features that make it appear to be right after the war, with updates.

We'll agree to disagree on this one.[this post was last edited: 11/17/2014-22:24]
 
In my earlier post I mentioned the neighbor that has a gas line in his garage, what I forgot to mention is that he installed it himself to stay under the radar of our city inspections department.  He also ran a sewer line from the garage to the house line himself for the same reason.
 
Installing a simple gas line extension usually requires a licensed plumber and an over-the-counter permit with subsequent inspection by Building and Safety, though of course plenty of homeowners, handymen and plumbers just do it unofficially.

 

There is no prohibition to installing a gas line in a garage; for small to medium size postwar homes an attached garage is the most common place for washers, dryers and water heaters since builders didn't want to commit any interior space to a separate laundry room. In the past few decades it has become common to require steel pipe bollards in front of gas appliances in a garage to prevent a car from hitting them. This can require a little creativity with a front load washer and would likewise affect a Servel installation today but back in 1960 I don't think any codes required this.

 
 
Hydraulique:

"In the past few decades it has become common to require steel pipe bollards in front of gas appliances in a garage to prevent a car from hitting them."

And people wonder why electric appliances get my vote over gas, every time....
 
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