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Cork insulation; a complete illustrated textbook on cork insulation ...

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344 CORK INSULATION<br />

to the <str<strong>on</strong>g>insulati<strong>on</strong></str<strong>on</strong>g> of mechanically cooled household refrig-<br />

erators.<br />

It was little suspected, perhaps, in the beg-innings of mechanical<br />

refrigerati<strong>on</strong> for the home, that serious trouble would<br />

be experienced with the operati<strong>on</strong> of the household refrig-<br />

erator itself; because there was then enough real and poten-<br />

tial trouble with the mechanical unit, without c<strong>on</strong>templating<br />

trouble from a coordinated product manufactured by others,<br />

especially since household refrigerators had been successfully<br />

produced, sold and used in the home for a great many years.<br />

Yet serious trouble there was, and it took a lot of time and<br />

much m<strong>on</strong>ey to eliminate it.<br />

A dozen years or so ago (about 1915), there was need<br />

for better <str<strong>on</strong>g>insulati<strong>on</strong></str<strong>on</strong>g> in household refrigerators, but the neces-<br />

sity for it did not then exist; and it was not until a serious<br />

attempt was made to cool such refrigerators by mechanical<br />

means that the subject of enough permanently efficient in-<br />

sulati<strong>on</strong> was made a research and engineering c<strong>on</strong>siderati<strong>on</strong>.<br />

The cost of operating <strong>on</strong>e of the early makes of mechancially<br />

cooled domestic refrigerators, original investment ignored,<br />

was frequently somewhat greater than the cost of cooling the<br />

same refrigerator with ice. The much lower temperature that<br />

could be maintained by the mechanical unit was c<strong>on</strong>sequently<br />

featured "as its greatest advantage, and the plant was adjusted<br />

and sold <strong>on</strong> that basis. Thereup<strong>on</strong> the refrigerator usually<br />

began to leak, and frequently to smell, and then the motor<br />

was observed to operate a greater number of hours per day,<br />

until it was sometimes said to operate almost c<strong>on</strong>tinuously,<br />

and general dissatisfacti<strong>on</strong> with the installati<strong>on</strong> <strong>on</strong> the part<br />

of the purchaser was, under such c<strong>on</strong>diti<strong>on</strong>s, the inevitable<br />

result.<br />

Examinati<strong>on</strong> of these "leakers" and "smellers" usually<br />

revealed the fibrous <str<strong>on</strong>g>insulati<strong>on</strong></str<strong>on</strong>g> in the hollow walls of the re-<br />

frigerator water-soaked and odor-saturated ; whereup<strong>on</strong>, after<br />

a c<strong>on</strong>siderable lapse of time and following much investigati<strong>on</strong>,<br />

the <str<strong>on</strong>g>insulati<strong>on</strong></str<strong>on</strong>g> specificati<strong>on</strong>s were changed, and, borrowing a<br />

page from the experience and practice of commercial cold<br />

storage plants, pure <strong>cork</strong>board was directed to be used. The<br />

permanent insulating efficien.cy of <strong>cork</strong>board in cold storage<br />

structures was a known quantity, and its well-known freedom

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