Who Patented Gas Absorbsion Refigeration?

We have friends from the states who own an island in Canada in Lake of the Woods. They have a 45 year old Servel gas absorption refrigerator which has been in their family that long. They use it in the cabin. They go up every summer for 3 months to live off the grid, then shut everything down and return to the states. In 45 years the fridge has never failed.

Dale

Google Crosley icy ball.

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
The first commercial use of refridgeration, proven, unpatented , in the USA was in Appalachicola, Fl. There is a museum there about it.
Edison got the credit by stealing the idea and patenting it.

dr john gorrie of appalachicola invented the system of evapeorative cooling in 1851, long before Edison .

The first commercial use of refridgeration, proven, unpatented , in the USA was in Appalachicola, Fl. There is a museum there about it.
Edison got the credit by stealing the idea and patenting it.

The company was Electrolux. The refrigerator Electrolux designed and marketed was under the brand name SERVEL.

The Servel absorbsion refrigerator was the standard of the world for decades.

RV refrigerators are far inferior in durability as compared to a Servel. i.e. heavier weight. A ten cubic foot servel cooling unit weighs five times as much as a Dometic or Norcold unit. It was not uncommon for a Servel to accumulate hundreds of thousands of trouble-free service hours.

When rural electrification phased out and grid transmission replaced it the gas refrigerator was dumped like a red headed stepchild. Forty years ago I hauled a three axle enclosed utility trailer to Mexico. In it was 18 Servel refrigerators of various sizes, years and models.

All had been tested and tweaked to make sure they did what they were supposed to.

They were a gift by a mountain resort that I outfitted with a pair of gen sets.

I arrived at my (rural) destination. Within 5 days all of the refrigerators had been purchased. People were tired of scarfing fresh meat and vegetables then living on dried meat and desiccated vegetables.

OK I knew that Einstein and Leo Szilard invented a fridge. That fact is commonly mentioned in Physics and in Engineering classes. But I don't think it's exactly the same as the ones in RV's. The patent expired long ago anyway. Sweden comes into the picture since a Swedish Corp bought the patent from Einstein and Szilard

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