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RACA Journal: ISSN 1812-772X
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RACA Journal Publication www. refrigerationandaircon. co. za eamonn @ interactmedia. co. za editor ' s note
CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF THE DOMESTIC REFRIGERATOR
In 2025 / 26, the domestic refrigerator reaches an important milestone: one hundred years since the start of its mass production and marketing. While refrigeration technology had been developing for decades before, it was the mid-1920s that marked the moment when the refrigerator truly entered everyday domestic life. In a feature article for the January issue of ASHRAE Journal, engineer Andy Pearson reflects on this transformation, tracing both the technological breakthroughs and the social changes that accompanied them.
The domestic refrigerator did not arrive fully formed. Its development spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries, shaped by experimentation, competing technologies and hard lessons learned. As Pearson describes in his Journal article, the 1920s were a period of rapid innovation – but also considerable risk.
Early domestic refrigerators relied on refrigerants that today would be unthinkable in homes. Sulphur dioxide, widely used at the time, was pungent and toxic. Methyl chlorides were even more dangerous. These systems typically employed open, beltdriven compressors, increasing the likelihood of leaks. Safety, not efficiency or environmental impact, was the dominant concern.
Yet these challenges mirror issues faced by engineers today. The choice of refrigerant – balancing toxicity, flammability, performance and practicality – today remains as defining a question of refrigeration design as the 1920s. Pearson draws a direct line from the debates of the 1920s to the modern era of refrigerant transitions and regulatory phase-downs.
One of the most striking insights from Pearson’ s research is how perceptions of safety evolve. In the 1920s, propane was
actively marketed as a safe refrigerant because it was non-toxic – an irony not lost on modern engineers accustomed to treating flammability as the primary hazard. As Pearson notes, safety is not inherent to a substance alone, but to how systems are designed, built and controlled.
Two parallel solutions ultimately defined domestic refrigeration. On one path, manufacturers such as General Electric refined systems using toxic refrigerants, focusing on improved containment and engineering controls. On the other, Thomas Midgley and his colleagues pursued new synthetic refrigerants, leading to the introduction of R-12. These developments converged with another critical innovation: the hermetic compressor. By sealing the refrigerant circuit, manufacturers dramatically reduced leak risk and enabled the widespread adoption of refrigerators in homes.
Pearson emphasises his admiration for the engineers of this era. Working with limited data and rudimentary theoretical frameworks, they relied on observation, experimentation and ingenuity. Their achievements laid the foundation for an appliance that would soon be taken for granted.
The domestic refrigerator was not just a technical breakthrough – it was a social one. While researching his Journal article, Pearson explored ASHRAE’ s historical archives, uncovering refrigerator advertisements from the 1920s. These ads reveal much about the era’ s social attitudes: refrigerators were marketed primarily to women as household managers, with messaging that often verged on fear-based – suggesting that without refrigeration, families risked illness from spoiled food.
These advertisements also captured the sense of novelty surrounding the appliance. Refrigerators were aspirational, symbols of modernity and care for one’ s family. Pearson recounts a story from his own neighborhood: a former refrigerator salesman from the 1930s recalled being invited to dinner by a newly married couple, eager to demonstrate the benefits of the refrigerator he had sold them. Such enthusiasm underscores how transformative the technology once felt.
Today, refrigerators are commodities – expected, reliable, almost invisible. Yet their impact on daily life has been profound. They reshaped food storage, diets, shopping habits and domestic labour. They supported urbanisation and industrial food supply chains. As Pearson writes,“ our lives have never been the same since”.
While 2025 / 26 may not mark a single invention or invention date, it represents a meaningful watershed: a century since refrigeration became a standard feature of domestic life. Pearson’ s ASHRAE Journal paper reminds us that this transformation was neither inevitable nor simple – it was the result of decades of engineering effort, risk-taking and societal change.
As the refrigeration industry once again navigates questions of safety, sustainability and refrigerant choice, the lessons of the domestic refrigerator’ s early years remain strikingly relevant. The centenary is not merely a celebration of an appliance, but of engineering’ s ability to quietly – and permanently – change how we live. RACA
RACA Journal I March 2026 www. refrigerationandaircon. co. za
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