Tough Love: Norcool Fridge in a Drawer
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 08.16.07
We always quote architect Donald Chong: "Small fridges make good cities."- the principle being that if you shop locally and fresh from a neighbbourhood store, you don't need much space. (and vice versa: if you don't have much space you shop a lot locally) Thus we were really intrigued by Norcool's Scandinavian works-in-a-drawer fridge. Everything lays out neatly and accessibly and it integrates beautifully into kitchen cabinetry.
We have also noted that chest type fridges and freezers are extraordinarily efficient because cold air sinks, so you can open the door of a chest design without all the cold air spilling out onto the floor. We immediately thought that a drawer type fridge would be perfect.
Unfortunately, the drawers all have open bottoms, easy to clean and good for air circulation, but every bit of the cooled air will end up on the floor as soon as the drawer is opened.
The fridge is small, and at maximum power consumption draws only 105 watts while cooling 170 litres of useable space, and it would certainly compromise air circulation if the drawers had solid bottoms so perhaps we are asking too much. Or are we? ::Norcool
via ::TrendHunter
Can we get this in N. America? What about a freezer version as well?
Commercial (restaurant) refrigerated drawers are solid stainless steel, sometimes with holes drilled in the sides of the drawers. They do have a big fan to push air around though.
I have seen fridge drawers with bottoms on home improvement shows. Not sure who makes them or the $$$
I've been drooling over the subzero refrigerated drawers for a couple of years.
http://www.subzero.com/products/category.aspx?cid=5
It looks like they have enclosed bottoms.
i'm not convinced the open bottoms will make a huge difference; there will be some energy needed to recool the warmer air, but most of the "stored coldness" in a refrigerator or freezer is in the mass of the foods, the packaging and the walls of the appliance; relatively speaking, the mass of the air is fairly small; i'd want to see a real analysis before i'd accept that open bottoms make a big difference in efficiency; i'd expect other factors to weigh more heavily in the efficiency of these drawers, such as the fact that smaller volumes have proportionately greater surface area
i'm not convinced the open bottoms will make a huge difference; there will be some energy needed to recool the warmer air, but most of the "stored coldness" in a refrigerator or freezer is in the mass of the foods, the packaging and the walls of the appliance; relatively speaking, the mass of the air is fairly small; i'd want to see a real analysis before i'd accept that open bottoms make a big difference in efficiency; i'd expect other factors to weigh more heavily in the efficiency of these drawers, such as the fact that smaller volumes have proportionately greater surface area
on the other hand, if a smaller refrigerator can use less electricity than a larger refrigerator, even though it is less efficient per unit of volume, it's worth considering
www.randellfx.com - a commercial fridge with insulated drawers, so all the cold air stays in!