Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Condensers and Receivers – Household
A set of three early, “original equipment manufacturer” (OEM), fin and tube, air-cooled condensers of varying capacities, from the 1930’s, representing a range of Canadian OEM engineering and fabrication practices in ferrous and non ferrous materials (copper and aluminium) for use on refrigeration machines, with anhydrous sulphur dioxide refrigerant, 1930’s.
Technical Significance:
Simple plate fins, engineered for a press fit on the condenser tube, as in examples 1 and 3 were relatively easily achieved. The serpentine, soldered fin construction in example 2 represented a 2 nd or 3 rd generation of fin engineering, with higher conductivity and thermal performance. The manufacturing process for producing the fins and soldering them in place was a mark of the increasing sophistication of Canadian manufacturing methods, in place by the end of the 1930’s. As manufacturing methods evolved the Canadian industry would move to non-ferrous tube and fin construction [copper], see code no. 6.02-7, and eventually to non-corrosive refrigerants, including methyl chloride and Freon 12. But for now this construction genre remained as the state of the art, an important snapshot in time.
See also items 6.01-2, 6.01-3, 6.02-7, 6.02-8, together they profile the evolution of the tube and fin, air-cooled condenser for FHP refrigeration machines in Canada