My fiancee and I just got this vintage Norge refrigerator from her parents for the wonderful price of $free. It had likely been in the basement of their house since it was new, and as far as I know it still works just fine, it just has a tendency to ice over pretty badly. I know very little about old fridges, but I love old appliances (I fixed up my vintage toaster in this thread), and I'm looking forward to restoring this one to its former glory. My plan right now is pretty much clean it, sand it down , maybe a skim coat of bondo, and then auto primer and paint. I'll put new door seals in it as well.
I'm pretty sure I've heard other people here talking about vintage fridges before, has anyone had any experience with old Norges?
Norge made some really good appliances back in the day. Some distant division of Borg Warner. If you get one of their washing machines from about 1976 or older, it has a BW gearbox in it.
Icing over is likely just the fact that it's an older fridge before someone invented frost-free. A frost-free fridge uses reverse cycles of the compressor to actually heat the cooling coils just a wee bit. The surrounding frozen food doesn't know the difference, but running that reverse cycle for a few minutes periodically keeps frost from building up. Old fridges don't have that.
If you find that it's freezing up more frequently than every few months, it might be low on freon (likely R22 or R12, both of which are unobtanium). The good news is that it's old enough that it likely has service ports, and there are compatible refrigerants (I think) that you can top it off with and get it in ship-shape.
I find it odd that a 1950s-60s appliance will likely outlive a brand new LG or Samsung that you buy today.
You could build your own defrost cycle in there. There are probably kits for it. Mine turns off the compressor and uses a little heating element below the coil to remove buildup. You could build a manual one with a switch, put one on a timer, or even use some more advanced control board/relay to do one.
I don't think they will necessarily outlive modern appliances except that they are cool so people have more interest in maintaining them. A modern fridge's basic components are still pretty rock solid. Its the added defrost cycle, ice maker, water filtration/dispenser, "smart" screen so you can watch tik tok on the door, etc. that can be problematic.
ProDarwin said:
I don't think they will necessarily outlive modern appliances except that they are cool so people have more interest in maintaining them.
Politely disagree. A brand new fridge will quit cooling in about 10 years. That's not my opinion, that is the industry standard that manufacturers go for.
Old appliances were built. By that, I mean, the manufacturer built the components in-house, assembled, and warrantied things in-house. Ever since the early 90s, they became assemblers. They bought components from other manufacturers based on price/quality, and assembled them in other factories. When you buy a GE fridge today, the only thing about it that's GE is the nametag. It was assembled with parts by various manufacturers by [insert low-wage country's factory] and sold by GE. The warranty is even handled by a third party, and service is kind of a thing of the past. All sub-contracted.
Heck, when my sister bought a new LG fridge and the ice dispenser died in the first three months, the third-party LG service person told her that she'd be back at the store in 6-10 years shopping again. 10 years from now when hers dies and no parts have been available since 2025, I would wager that this Norge will still function.
But AMiataCalledSteve is sitting on a functioning, 50-plus year old appliance that is still ticking. The deep freeze in my grandfather's garage has been around since I was born (1973) and still works like day one.
Granted... at about three times the energy consumption.
In reply to ProDarwin :
I dunno. The 10ish year old fridge that was in the house when we moved in in 2020 died, and its replacement has already had its guts replaced, and it's just a basic fridge, no ice maker or anything "smart".
Meanwhile, in the basement, is the 50s, GE I think, that sat in a storage unit for 20 years is still chugging a long just fine. Aside from my forgetting to manually defrost it until after it blocks up at least. Although the plug end is starting to fall out of the outlet I think it's more outlet than plug that's the issue.
Edit: I was wrong, mine is a Hotpoint, not a GE
That's a nice antique though. Shelves on the door seem more modern, and the freezer taking up the whole top instead of half would be a nice upgrade compared to mine.
In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :
Nice! Lift with your legs although you probably already know that. Those old ones have some mass to them.
I’m going to guess late 1950’s on that one so absolutely R-12 for refrigerant. Those old ones will need to be unloaded and manually defrosted a couple of times a year as they pre date defrost timers / heaters. I remember my parents had a freezer around that old when I was a kid, they’d unload it into a couple of coolers and put pots of boiling water inside/ close the door and repeat as needed until it had thawed. Then wipe everything dry, turn it back on and reload it a few hours later.
Make sure the door gaskets seal tight as that keeps warm air from getting in and slows down the ice buildup on the evaporator tubes. Resist the urge to use sharp objects to speed up the defrost time.
Edit, there should be a separate inside door on that freezer. Do you have it somewhere?
In reply to 11GTCS :
I noticed that too, and no, that appears to be the one piece that's missing. Aside from that everything else seems to be in place, and it even has a little egg holder lol
They are not energy efficient. Not one berkin' bit.
In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :
From memory they usually weren’t much more than a simple plastic or aluminum door. I’m sure you could fab something up, even a piece of rigid foam board would keep the freezer at temperature and reduce the icing from the warmer air in the rest of the refrigerator.
11GTCS said:
In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :
From memory they usually weren’t much more than a simple plastic or aluminum door. I’m sure you could fab something up, even a piece of rigid foam board would keep the freezer at temperature and reduce the icing from the warmer air in the rest of the refrigerator.
Yep, something like this on the right.
I found this in a FB ad for a model similar to mine:
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:
ProDarwin said:
I don't think they will necessarily outlive modern appliances except that they are cool so people have more interest in maintaining them.
Politely disagree. A brand new fridge will quit cooling in about 10 years. That's not my opinion, that is the industry standard that manufacturers go for.
RevRico said:
In reply to ProDarwin :
I dunno. The 10ish year old fridge that was in the house when we moved in in 2020 died, and its replacement has already had its guts replaced, and it's just a basic fridge, no ice maker or anything "smart".
I guess I'm looking at imminent fridge failure.
FWIW, My fridge is 10 years old. I had to replace the defrost thermostat and 2 plastic parts in the freezer. All parts were easily ordered online.
When I had it diagnosed the first time, I called an appliance guy. I thought it was failing, but it was just frozen. I asked him about the compressor and he dismissively said something like "oh no, that stuff is a tank"
Only time will tell I guess.
Noddaz said:
Interestingly, the theater has one just like the one on the left with the top compressor. It. Still. Works. It has been stuffed in a corner for decades and used for a few shows as a prop/set piece. Last year we used it for a play and the director wanted the light to come on when you opened the door. I thought I would try just plugging it in. I stood by with a fire extinguisher, but to my surprise it kicked on and got cold.
I unfortunately realized that it used propane as a refrigerant, and I didn't want a 70-year-old electrical appliance on stage with an explosive gas, so I drained it and disconnected the thermostat so it wouldn't run.
If it's old enough, it has SO2 refrigerant. Had a house that came with one of those in the basement. We were too afraid to plug it in to see if it worked, the refrigerant turns into sulfuric acid.
NickD
MegaDork
7/3/23 1:34 p.m.
My parents have a Westinghouse refrigerator in their basement that was given to my grandparents when they were married in '48 as a wedding gift. And it was secondhand even in '48! That thing weighs a metric berkeleyton, and you can watch the meter spin when you kick it on, but it cools like a bastard and can even be turned down low enough to operate as a freezer. They use it as overflow. and it'll get unplugged and sit for a bunch of years, and then they'll plug it in and it hums to life and is making ice a couple hours later. Old appliances were really something else. They were built for life.
In reply to NickD :
Same with the VCR that my grandfather bought in 1977. And the tapes. All were super high quality and outlasted the technology.
Now, the flip side, the VCR cost $1000 and blank tapes were $25, in 1977 dollars. I shudder to think how much one of those Egyptian Pyramid grade fridges cost relative to, say, a car or a house.
I think about this sort of thing a lot when people complain about how expensive some things are. Yeah, my phone cost $1100, but so did the 286 that my mom bought in 1989, and it didn't come with a monitor or a hard drive, and it was one of the cheap computers.
