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One of the biggest problems with my refrigerator; Things get lost underneath it. To fix this I propose that refrigerators directly lie on the ground. The reason refrigerators don't do this is twofold: it makes it easier to open the door and it allows the refrigerator to be picked up.
There are many
solutions for the door problem. One would be to have the door slide down like a garage door, down to the bottom of the fridge. It could be similarly automated, and since it is inside it would not develop issues like a garage door tends to.
Picking up-wise; just have handles. Or rather, more interestingly, a set of bars with wheels on the end that can be cranked onto the ground, like a jack on a car. Moving a refrigerator is typically a multiple person activity. With these wheel legs, though, the task could be effortlessly accomplished solo.
There may be some ventilation issues that I don't precisely understand, but I'm sure that can be more easily set at the top of a refrigerator than at the bottom.
Fridge Risers
http://mobile.walma...-Bed-Risers/5148131
(can also be used for beds) [swimswim, Nov 25 2011]
Early refrigerator
http://en.wikipedia...e:Monitor_refer.jpg
Highly visible dissipator coils. [8th of 7, Nov 26 2011]
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I would avoid any sort of garage door solution as
it's far too likely to be hard to insulate well, both
at the sliding track seams and at the door joints.
Furthermore, such a door would have to be
thinner than thermodynamically optimal in order
to roll. |
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Simple solution is to design the fridge with the
door seam above the ground. |
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Simpler solution: put a trim strip on the floor in
front of the fridge hole. |
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Note that fridges like to be kept level, also, so
leveling feet would be needed which would raise
it off the ground a little. |
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Sit the fridge on a lump of play-doh. Cheap, adjustable, and colourful! |
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Aha! How about a refrigerator entirely made from such a sculptable substance? Also, by inside, I mean indoors. There would be considerably less nests built in such a refrigerator than tend to exist in a car garage. |
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What [pocmloc] said. And to retrofit old fridges, you
could use bed risers, linked. |
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Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering exactly *what* you lose under your fridge? The only thing that can fit under mine is dust! |
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For those of us with valuable dust collections, that could become quite an issue! |
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Magnets, food, money, small vehicles. Pretty much anything can be lost it seems. |
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[-] Flat bottoms are terrible ideas, some supermodels notwithstanding. |
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// Pretty much anything can be lost it seems // |
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Ammunition. All sorts of ammunition, particularly rimless types like 9mm P and .45 ACP seem to have a horrid attraction for the undersides of fridges. Bottleneck rounds tend to roll in a curved path, allowing them to be retrieved, but the smaller stuff thends to make a bee-line for that dark, inaccesible region under the fridge ... the last time we had a thorough clear-out, we had enough ammo to start (or stop) a small insurrection. And there were blasting caps as well ... |
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A friend of mine has a cat that somehow manages to shimmy
under his fridge. Now how [8th] put his anno before this
info instead of after is a mystery. |
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A big chunk of the reason why fridges don't sit flat is so they can draw air under and up the coils in the back. |
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In order to handle this with a flush fridge, you would either need side access (dificult for most fridges set into cabinets or similar), or forced convection from the top (The continous fan required would eat a noticeable amount of power). |
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A better solution would be to raise the fridge enough so you can get underneath it easily, as [swimswim]'s link suggests. |
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What if these coils where built inside the fridge? So that the actual fridge part starts a bit higher? |
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coils under the sink counter to enable faster dish-drying (for those that do it the old fashioned way) and frozen food defrosting. |
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How are the coils going to be built inside the fridge? The entire point is to allow them to dump the heat removed from the fridge to the outside air. They could be detached from the fridge, but that's going to require a more elaborate build in, and make it much harder to place/replace the fridge. |
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Using them to dry dishes (or even heat an oven) is probably feasible, but a second stage heat pump might be required to concentrate the heat enough. |
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I suppose I don't understand why the coils can't go into an box that is within the main refrigerator body, but not within the insulation of the refirgerator and with vents in it to let in outside air. It undeniably would take more effort to replace such a piece, but it would take an awful lot of effort to replace a magnetic letter 'A', also. |
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The coils are already mounted on the rear, the
problem is airflow. Where are you going to mount
them to get as much? Any place internal to the case
would have a restricted airflow, and it pretty much
needs to be open top and bottom for natural
convection to work. |
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Erm, in the Land of the Rising (level of boredom with my job), the fridge in here doesn't have any external coils.
They are in the body of the fridge. |
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Going (presumably) outwards it's the food compartment, then the insulation, then the coils, then a metal shell over the whole thing conducting the heat away from coils. |
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Anyway, what the world really needs a seamless round fridge, with a door that opens up on riser hinges and the racks for the food are mounted on a central axis with bearings. So, none of the food is at the back, cos you can turn the lot. |
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I'm going to stop arguing cases, because someone
is going to come up with an exception for
everything. But as a rule, you need to dump heat
to air. That air typically flows without any
mechanical assistance. The air starts at the
bottom, and the heat causes it to rise. Anything
that prevents this will at a minimum reduce the
efficiency of the fridge. |
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If the fridge is mounted back into cabinets (as is
frequently the case), and the bottom is
completely blocked, this air flow will not occur on
the rear or sides, as there is no way for
replacement air to reach the bottom of the coils
(or sheet metal layer over the coils).
Even with a few inches clear to the sides, you will
get less than ideal air flow. |
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In theory, a you could mount the coils
in the door with the necessary vents and allow in
cabinet mounting, but this
would require significant additional connections
to the door, which would introduce a significant
point of
failure. |
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Ferris wheel fridge. With a crank. |
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