Refrigerators

The bank is going to do an appraisal based on our house plans
and what is going to be in it. In the end it's a home loan just as if we were buying a house already built on the property. In light of this we need all the specifics on appliances and fixtures. Fortunately, Inhabitat is doing a Green Your Appliances (sponsored by Bosch-hmmm) weekly segment. Here's a little fridge or "icebox" (as Grandma Gottfried used to call it) history. "As Americans in the 60s and 70s wanted a bigger refrigerator box, designers removed interior insulation to make room inside the appliance for weekly grocery trips and larger bottles of milk. The exterior of the fridge became so cool, it would start to “sweat.” So, designers ingeniously installed mini heaters outside of the refrigerator to evaporate the dew. All of this design and workaround put bigger energy demands on these appliances, so that a refrigerator in the mid 1970s used four times the consumption of a 1950s model. Meanwhile, Europe and Japan kept their standards high, their ice boxes small, and to this day total energy use is half that of American fridges." Read more at the Link.