Date:         Mon, 14 Jul 1997 19:20:21 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Austin <austins@ix.netcom.com>
Subject:      Re: We're Science explains propane refrigerators

At 02:21 PM 7/15/97 -0500, you wrote:
>You Westie owners out there might be interested about why lighting a
>propane fire under your refrigerator actually cools the food inside.
>The weekly science program "We're Science" heard on PRI stations, and
>at www.umr.edu/~science explains it on this week's program.
>
>Turns out you are vaporizing ammonia, then combining it with hydrogen,
>which compresses it, drawing off heat, which liquifies the ammonia
>again, releasing the hydrogen. Something like that. Seems that big
>industry does most of their cooling using ammonia, not HFC based
>compounds.
>
>Paul Henderson
>'84 Vanagon (137K)
>
While having my (home) reefer repaired, I mentioned to the repairman that
my Dad still has a GE refigerator that he bought new in 1950 which still
works like new & has never been serviced;  repairman sez 'yeh, the old ones
used ammonia and nitrogen (?) & rarely go bad, but if they do they smell
horrible so the manufacturers switched to Freon, which never has worked as
well as the old systems'.

Austin