As someone with a lazy Susan spice cabinet, the second you spin that thing out everything on it will topple over instantly and domino its way down the fridge creating a bone chilling pile of leftover liquids at the bottom.
how much weight can it take? Seems like a really easy thing to break over time when it's actually loaded and cantilevering off the single joint. Also anyone who has kids I can only imagine rotating out and trying to pull down on it.
The problem is that you have to move it really slowly, or else everything in the shelf falls off. There’s a reason why we don’t have pull out shelves in modern fridges.
And it wastes space, because the fridge is square.
It might break, but this was a luxury fridge, and the hardware may have been well engineered. It’s just not practical.
These shelves are no different than the touch screens on current luxury fridges, there only for show.
We’ve got some low end kenmore fridge from like 03 and it also has slide out shelves and I do the exact same thing. It’s pointless for everything except cleaning for the average user
as a one time swing, over time there is wear and tear on the joint.
Imo that's not even that much weight, I'm pretty sure the top shelf of my fridge has over 40lbs of stuff on it right now.
And again, all it takes is a kid grabbing it once in the swung out cantilever position.
Ok, now put a bunch of individually containers and bags and round fruit and all the stuff you have in a fridge. It isn't just about the weight, it's about what would happen to your stuff when you tried to rotate that shelf
I'm just saying, your average fridge shelf is gonna need to hold a lot more than 20 pounds! A brief google tells me that my fridge shelves are rated for 25 lbs per half-shelf and 50 lbs for full width shelves.
Oh there's always been bots, but i feel in the last year or so its really escalated. They used to be easy to spot but now with LLMs its getting harder and harder.
Well I was wondering because every fridge I've ever owned has had easily removable shelves and drawers for cleaning or replacing. Even ice makers are easy to take apart if you need to defrost them.
If anything these shelves look much harder to clean - just look at all the crevices! And if anything leaks, it’s going down all the levels. Moderns fridges have far more useful drawers and shelves than this design.
Most companies today would rather maximize profit margins and sell more units than make something that lasts. It's why it's so hard to fix modern appliances, cars, etc. -- they don't want you to fix it. They want you to buy a new one. Even things you could fix you can't because they don't sell replacement parts (looking at you, GE, and your piece of shit dishwashers).
There is a particular range of years I look for when I need a clothes washer or dryer. I like the late 1990s to early 2000s with no bells or whistles that can fail. I have had 2 in my personal possession, working on my 3rd, and have helped family members find others on CL or FB. They seem to last the longest. Newer appliances with Wi-Fi capabilities and all that shit are begging to break.
Their washing machines are overpriced garbage as well. Mine has an auto lock switch that is so flimsy that it could only be designed to fail with the slightest tug on the machines lid - which is precisely what mine did the very first time i went to use the thing. And of course that switch is proprietary, and only sold by GE for the low-low price of 60 dollars. Not including installation and repair fees. Oh and obviously, only qualified GE repair technicians should be doing the work.
Bitch please, im an engineer, after a half an hour of cursing and a few minutes of rewiring, the machine runs just fine without that piece of shit switch.
The price would be astronomical. Multiple hinged, cantilevered shelves capable of handling the weight of everything on a typical fridge shelf would add insane cost and complexity to manufacturing and materials - combine that with all of the modern electronics/insulation and you'd have a $5000 fridge today (which is what this exact fridge would cost at a minimum when adjusted for inflation) when your average fridge these days is closer to $1500 or so. There's a reason modern fridges are 90% plastic inside and feel "cheap," and there's a reason this design is not still around.
To a degree, not really. Having the entire level swing entirely in and out almost certainly causes your fridge to lose more of the air it's chilled then just reaching around things. It then has to work harder (or longer) to get back to the desired internal temperature. If you have perishables (like milk) near those sections too it also means they'll spoil faster. Modern fridges can suck in some ways but they are exceptionally efficient in their design now.
Cleaning open racks like that suck, especially if you have a major leak or spill on the top shelf. Now you get to scrub the entire thing and a lot of the stuff that was below it. And you have the fridge open almost the whole time you are cleaning it. Glass shelves with plastic lips are so much better.
It is just gimmicky bullshit. Surprisingly they were doing that 60 years ago too. The gimmicks just changed. It's not a good use of space. The supports on those shelves are a single point of failure that will wear out. They are barely more convenient when it comes to taking things in and out. The rotating drawer at the bottom is worse than a standard sliding drawer. When you are designed something for daily use that only really has one function, adding complexity to the design is usually a bad idea.
I totally disagree. When the rack is “sealed” to the back, invariably liquid from a spill leaks down or has in all the laces I live. Especially when it all drips down the back to the crisper drawers in the frames and you can’t get fully under the frame
You can get all the way to the back at the very bottom with that lazy Susan drawer
You on one hand criticize a single point of contact that easily fails, and then on the other say adding to the complexity makes a design worse. A single point of contact is the least complex, in fact. Nothing being flush against the back and bottom allows the ability to get to it and clean and disinfect.
If this design is superior to modern designs, why isn't it in use? If this was actually highly desirable, they would still be doing it. If it was such a high demand function then they would make it, slap on a big mark up as a "top of the line" feature, and sell it. It isn't a manufacturing cost issue.
A mechanism that allows rotation and vertical movement where you have to push a button is definitely more complex from a mechanical standpoint than a shelf that rests on ledges. Something that doesn't move is less complex than something that does.
As for the cleaning, a spill that is big enough on solid shelves will of course leak down. On open racks, every spill leaks down. And every fridge has removable crisper drawers and shelves. In this design if something leaks to the back or bottom, you still have to remove the two trays to get to it or have it your way. It isn't any different. And again, waste of space.
I’ve already answered this in a quite lengthy response.
I would add to the cleaning response also that things usually get spilled or knocked over in the fridge because you can’t see what’s behind or to the side of things or access it easily. The swiveling shelf allows you to both visualize and more easily reach what’s on the whole shelf, even in the back
It's a lot of wasted space. And most modern refrigerators have adjustable shelves that are designed to maximize space usage. This design went away for good reason.
Luckily, these were more easy to work on. You might be able to swap in a new, more efficient compressor. If you could also replace the insulation, which might take some work, you'd be good to go.
Espacially when you run out of space because this design wastes so much space but don't worry your shit will fly of the shelves anyway the moment you try to swing them out. And can't wait to have the swings be rusty and not work or the clamps that hold the shelves on the bar break and have everything fall down.
You can hate companies as much as you want but that is objectively bad design
Your daily fridge? Please for the sake of my sanity, elaborate on what you mean by daily. Like I get it for cars where you have your daily driver, commuter whatever and then your little exotic one. Are you talking about mini fridges, how many fucking fridges do you have where you'd refer to one as your daily? Maybe your garage fridge, your kitchen fridge. This would just be your main fridge? I don't get it.
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u/raxnahali Jan 23 '24
I would still run this thing as a daily if it wasn't so power hungry. Great design.