Secret Life Of Machines - The Refrigerator (Full Length) 

I remember this one very well............I was in it. It was a geat series that Tim did, wonderfully educational. I see myself back in 1987, had a lot more hair then. I am 60 now. Sadly The Ice Factory closed not long after this was recorded. I remember being offered a commission of £100 for my time but declined, instead asked for all the film 'rushes' and outakes which I still have...priceless! Ice in those days was used in fishing vessel holds to keep the fish in perfect condition, ice was also used in ice sculpture and for keeping the Wimbledon tennis balls at stable temperature, mainly because as the balls became warmer the air inside increased and they bounced more. I am still in the refrigeration business living up in Aylsham, Norfolk. I think Tim Hunkin still lives Nr Southwold in Suffolk. I supplied a little compressor for him to construct a hand cranked refrigeration demonstrator for The Science museum in London, where I believe it is still there. Tim is very clever. The great Ken Wood opened the new domestic section in 1992, to which I recorded the the ceremony. Happy days.

I've fixed a few people's fridge doors using Rex's technique :) I remember seeing it as a kid and it stuck in my head for years!

This show is responsible for me growing into an adult that can be my own DIY repair man, however the two things I am usually stuck on fixing is fridges and air conditioning because the repair requires special equipment to capture and refill the refrigerant gases.

These are the best technical visual shows that i saw in my 67 years life. Anybody can easely understand the principles behind the mechanics. Great work!

The cooling effect is quite dramatic.. **BRRREKKAAAAAWSSGHHHHHSHSHSHHHHHPHSFRKAAA**!!

I discovered this show in my twenties. Loved it then and still like it 30 years later!

Ahhhh! Mr. Lewis, I can't thank you enough. I loved this show watching it in the middish-1990s on The Learning Channel (back when it lived up to its name--before it devolved into "TLC"). Mr. Tim Hunkin and the late Mr. Rex Garrod were deligtful as the show hosts. Much appreciate the trip dpwn memory lane.

Isnt too bad that if they did the same series today, we'd have a loud voiced presenter, jump cuts too numerous to count, and blaring background music......ok....maybe the animation is a little cheesy, but overall a enjoyable series to watch and listen to.....

The series surprisingly has some charm to it. The tutone music sure takes me back and, explanation is always clear, very good show. Also 1988 was the year the navy kicked me out, thank god.

I am so dang excited too see this again. With the exception of video quality the show is as great as ever. SOOO funny and always easy to follow. I'm binging 30 years later.

As a child in the 60s I can recall stories of kids getting locked in old-style discarded fridges and suffocating as a result of not being able escape due to the external locking handles then still in use.

Doc Brown made a pretty cool refrigeration machine in 1885 :D

Cool (pardon the pun) watch. I used to work at Hotpoint in the compressor department at their Peterborough plant (1979 - 1982) and made most of those bits.

Thank you Carl! These shows should not be forgotten.

Thanks for posting this video and thanks to those who made it!

One of my favorite programs! Thanks, Carl Lewis 😀😀😀

So glad you took the trouble to upload these! When they first came out sometimes they wouldn't be on, so some episodes I never got to see... thanks!

Great show loved watching it back in the day and it's still awesome 👍

Fun fact is that many of the fridges that has ended up at the scrapyards just had a faulty termostatic switch wich could've easily been replaced. I've got an Electro Helios refridgerator from the 1960's that still to this day is working just fine...day in, day out.

Tim Hunkin Is a national treasure . Time for a Knighthood

24:05 - Wow...I'd forgotten that monthly chore my grandma would have to plan for of having to defrost her fridge. 24:19 - "...that fridges were about the most reliable of our household machines..." I can agree with that. I can't think of a single issue I've had with any fridge I've owned in the past 20 years. The only reason I can think of why I've gotten a new one recently is I wanted a bigger one.

That 1957 fridge is a lot better than the 2000's fridge i'm having today :p haha :)

Loved this show!

We had a LEC fridge in the 1960s and '70s like the one at 20:55. It was very long lived, but I am not sure how efficient it was! It seemed always to be on! Never had a fridge to last like it since for durability, and to add to your comments about the doors falling to pieces, you can add the feeble rust-proofing on more recent machines!

I love this series....wish there were more episodes made.

Beautiful video

I saw the show on the Discovery channel in the mid 1990's and I think I still have some episodes on VHS somewhere.

Amazing series watched a few of them from back when you could learn something from TV.

I can confirm that cooling beer is still incredibly important to us Aussies ! Few countries understand how important cold beer is in 45 C (113 F) summer heat !

The Elephant is like don't RUSH me Holmes!!!! I'll get there dammit!!!! 21:40

Wow - that old way of making ice blocks. Amazing!

thanks for posting...

9:54 My grandmother had this exact fridge (G.E. "Monitor Top") when I was a kid in the 1970's, By then it was doing work as extra food storage in the cellar, But it was STILL going! (I don't know what happened to it, but there are some still running TODAY!)

TIN HUNKHIN was a authentic genius 👌

The voice acting on this series seems even funnier in 2021. What a great program.

Timnrex are awsum great showing n graphics 👌 😎 👏 👍 🙌

Excellent

what a great show.

There’s just something about British shows that is uniquely charming.

I really liked this program style

Thank you.

18:37 I don't know why, but that transition really cracked me up.

Yeah! Thank you! 😊

These programs should be taught in school. Most machines still work exactly the same

Been watching these as never seen them before. So much better than the rubbish nowadays. You'd have some wise guy presenter cracking crappy jokes all show.

Havent seen anything on Tims RU-vid channel lately. Hope he is OK. I made a tribute video for this series. Not widely seen in the u.s. but still made an impression on my kid-self

I miss this show... ;-(

Cool!

And remember with the old school locking fridges of yesteryears.. In the households.. Either you got a airtight box you can lock somebody in.. Or. Survive a nuclear blast explosion like in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skulls .

My guilty pleasure, is wanting this beautiful fridge.

very interesting.....

My great grandmother had one of those old motor on top type fridges in the garage in the mid 70s, that was for great grandpa's beer and sodas for us kids. Funny part was the 1950s style fridge with the big handle in the kitchen. *:-)*

I lock my doors to keep elephants from entering my house to walk on my fridge.

Prior to the 1860s Dr. John Gorrie used a steam engine to compress air. The compression naturally increased the condensed air's temperature. But it also drove out the humidity, which made it fairly easy for the air to rapidly change temperature when the pressure was released. The air absorbed heat as it expanded. Gorrie used his engine to cool the air in a hospital that he ran for fever patients in Florida. His nurse left the machine on accidentally one night and ice had accumulated in the machine's pipes. So Gorrie began using the ice to cool the hospital. He tried to obtain financial backing to put the machine into commercial production, but the natural ice industry saw to it that backing wasn't available.

You're not weird. Geek wasn't mainstream back in the late 80s/early 90s, but we showed 'em.

The first practical use for refrigeration machinery was cooling Australian beer. Why does that fact not surprise me in the least?

I wonder if the lady with the cocktail is Tim’s wife, and if she is the wonderful voice behind the animations!

I think this series of programs were the prelude of the series "How things are made" 25 years or more later Very informal all the same

And the brine density was measured in degrees "Twaddell" I used to maintain the brine quality for the refrigeration system which was CO2 on SS Nevasa.

I remember the fridge being called the Frigidaire, even it was a Norge. Another brand name. My great Aunt and my Grandmother. Man I miss them both.

on tim hunkin channel there is a remastered version with commentary at the end

it's not that long ago that people used iceboxes instead of refrigerators. During my mom's childhood after WW2, they didn't have a refrigerator at home, just an icebox. Once a day a man came to the house and sold big blocks of ice and they bought one and put it into the icebox to cool their food. It melted in a few days, after that they would just buy the next one. The blocks where quite heavy, maybe 20 kg.

My great great grandson bought one of those Imperials in 1957.

They should make an updated version of this, but with current appliances.

Wish you had a playlist for this series.

I love the fact that Australians put fridges to use to cool beer

Lol when he turns on the CO2 🤣

I actually remember watching this show as a kid like five or six, (weird kid) they came on PBS. FUN FACT: Can your frig handle an elephant?

Funny we use co2 as a refrigerant now. And yes if it goes below 70psi, it turns into dry ice. Usually we keep the pressure about 200-1200psi. Ammonia is still used. Propane and butane are common refrigerants now as well

I read that there was a special refrigeration act that was enacted in the USA to allow anyone trapped in a refrigerator to get out. Children used to hide in old abandoned refrigerators as part of Hide and Seek games, getting trapped and suffocating, unable to get out.

Pure class at 2:51 lol..

❤️

How come they didn't even mention Carl Georg Munters and Baltzar von Platen ?! They invented the gas absorption refrigerator.

Back when they actually went into detail instead of the dumbing down they do in factual programmes today.

Somehow they managed to do Take Five in 4/4 and still make it recognizable.

2:52 - that WAS dramatic. Still laughing....

And now this technology will become even more important, since we can't actually do the energy transition away from fossil fuels without heat pumps, which basically work like fridges and are by far the most efficient technology to heat a building.

I had to watch this for my TAFE course.

Amazing series wish they was produced today. IT IS A DISGRACE at whats happened to the Uk and Northern Ireland

I certainly take my fridge for granted. When you watch a movie that takes place during medieval times and there are a bunch of people having a feast, do you wonder how they stored the meat before and after cooking? Were people just more immune to e-coli back then? After all, other animals can eat meat completely raw and be just fine. But that's kind of been an obsession of mine. I could not live any further back than the 1920s - electric lighting, refrigeration, and air conditioning. Prior to that I just can't imagine what life was like. I look at old Civil War photos and think how difficult it would have been living in the 19th century. I can't watch a movie taking place before 1900 without thinking, "Yeah but they didn't have electric lights or refrigerators..." But then again it's probably also the old style b&w photography that makes everything look so dreary.

Fridges are an excellent example of planned obsolescence by the corportations. In the past they worked so well, the only real reason for change was just to improve the packaging and styling, but the keeping things cold wasn’t the reason to change. And the ozone depletion thing, fridges typically were not the culprits for freon loss. Very dependable. Great show, great series, have always loved viewing them.

2:50 I could use one of those on a 95 degree summer day.

Dr Emmett Brown used a steam engine to make an ice cube in the old west.

Old fridges had more features than new ones.

2:50 lool

Good thinhing it held the Elephany up. The Elephant most likely would have been shot if it broke a leg in a fall.

I would have hired Rex fix my refrigerator. RIP mate.

23:28 whaat ?! /o\ .. priceless repair :)

2:50 lol

Bro one time on youtube i saw this add that looked like it was from the 1980s but it wasnt from 2018 and they were selling an oven that looked like a giant safe

Thinking about a refrigerator using a rotating heat pipe powered by solar power.

I like the reggae version of Take 5

I love that opening animation gives you the distinct impression that when we leave the house, the vacuum and sewing machine are having nasty, mop-and-bucket-clean-up sex. Like, hardcore.

My phone is like a fridge it also doesn'wear because my only interaction with it is tapping this glass plate.

I bought my fridge at Sears in 1987. Still going, although sadly Sears is not. Refrigerators and stoves are the LEAST likely thing to break down in the average home.

That line got away from him at 2:45 . You would think some one so smart would have known better .

My grand ma had working GE turret top frig that got sold at a yard sale for a few buck. Now I hear that collectors will pay thousands for a working one.

I love these videos from John Oliver’s uncle

Rex's capsule gun is way over complicated compared with a simple blowback paintball gun. But then paintballing hadn't really caught on.

if only they made more