Jim:
Thanks for posting the old Brunswick sales literature. Aside from the technical aspects, it made me realize how much better the "upper class" lived than most Americans of that time period. Repeated references to having a butler, and the pictures of the homes may as well have been on another planet when we consider how most of the population lived. My ancestors were either slogging along through life in a primitive backwater in Eastern Europe, or were struggling to survive in slum tenements in the "New World".
The literature also made the point that early home refrigeration systems were on par with what became commercial refrigeration systems (stores, restaurants, markets or institutional kitchens). Mention is made of "water connections", so those Brunswick systems used water cooled condensers- a handy feature which let the units be installed entirely indoors and worked fine if there was an unlimited supply of water, as from city mains vs a well system.
By contrast, an old promotional film about Delco home and farm lighting systems shows a Delco home refrigerator system with an air-cooled condenser. The compressor and condenser are mounted outside the home. Again, something seen on commercial refrigeration units rather than home refrigerators.
I am not sure when refrigerators became self contained appliances, but I know the G.E. "monitor top" refrigerators were some of the early "appliances" rather than the massive wooden reefer cabinets and ammonia compressor units. Years ago, in my father's house, we had two tenant apartments. One tenant refused to allow any improvements or painting for fear she would get hit with a rent increase. The result was she had an ancient refrigerator in her apartment which finally died. Dad got a new refrigerator, which, in the 1950's used freon and had a hermetically sealed "canned" compressor. Naturally, Dad and I just had to see what could be salvaged from the old refrigerator. The old refrigerator dated to the 20's, and was made by "The Seeger Refrigeration Company" of St. Louis, MO. It was a heavy old refrigerator, with a massive door. As I recall, the compressor was up on top. The refrigerant, as we found out the hard way, was sulphur dioxide gas. We figured the easiest thing to do was to cut into a line and let it bleed off. We got hit with sulphur dioxide fumes, but Dad, recalling his chemistry classes, turned the garden hose on it, saying we'd make weak sulphurous acid and maybe clear the storm drain with it. When the gas finally stopped bleeding out, we went to work at seeing what was salvageable. The tubing was all copper, with a heavy lead coating on it. The expansion valve was a massive little item, made by Detroit Lubricator and was actually adjustable. The compressor was some kind of vane pump, made of cast iron and direct coupled with a "rag joint" coupling to a cast iron frame motor. In the end, we salvaged next to nothing from that old reefer, but it was educational for me as a kid. I've never seen another old reefer like that one, let alone charged with sulphur dioxide.
In my father's old house, there was a separate cast iron drain stack with roof vent. Dad explained this was the "ice box drain stack", and a 1 1/2" galvanized steel pipe ran into the kitchen of each apartment with a trapped connection coming out of the floor along a wall. This was to connect to the drain pans in the old ice boxes.
In 1957, Dad combined two of the apartments into one large one for our family. In the process, Dad decided to install central air conditioning. This was unheard of in residences in our neighborhood. A contractor aptly named "Koldaire" arrived to install a crazy system known as the "Typhoon" air conditioning system. It was a bust from the git go. The Typhoon unit was designed for indoor mounting, but used an air cooled condenser, which, in our attic installation, promptly caused the compressor to burn out. The ducting, instead of being made of sheet metal, was made of fiberglass foil faced board and assembled with tape. When the unit did run, it lived up to the "Typhoon" part of the name by blowing the ducting apart and having it flapping around in the ceiling registers. Dad had a friend who was a real old time reefer man. Dad and his buddy resolved to put matters to rights. The result was Dad bought a new compressor, new expansion valve, new Penn pressure switches and a new water cooled condenser. Dad's buddy put that all together to create a water cooled condensing unit in our attic. I was about 8 years old at the time, anxious to learn, and eager to help with the job. The result was Dad's buddy taught me to silver braze reefer tubing with a Prestolite torch, and had me wriggle into all the tight places to silbraze joints or make up flared joints and help with putting things together. I have that Prestolite torch to this day and use it often enough. It was the era before the disposable tanks of refrigerant, and I remember the tanks of "Freon 22", about the size of "B" tanks of acetylene that we hauled up to the attic to charge the system with. If nothing else, I got a good education in a few things, and it kept me occupied. I was a kid who could not play at any sports (motor skills delay) and was an odd duck amongst my peers, so crawling into a reefer job in a hot and dusty attic was right up my alley. Mom would cook us up a huge meal, or we'd have a fire in the backyard and grill some steaks and Italian sausage and peppers when we'd get done with a work session on that old A/C unit conversion. It was good times, recalling Dad and his buddies and how they took care of each other. I was just a kid, but being able to really work with the men and being a part of things is something I remember quite fondly. Nowadays, to ask a kid of 8 to wriggle into a tight spot and silbraze a joint (with the mechanic watching and coaching) and being expected to work "for real" is probably the kind of thing that would get adults into hot water with child protective services. Add including that child with the grown men, allowing him to have a little wine or beer with them, and I am sure the old man and his buddies would all be locked up.
The air handler and evaporator section of the Typhoon unit remained in place, while the guts of the water cooled condensing unit were laid out on the joists or hung from the rafters. Dad then called in a "tin knocker shop", and they put in galvanized ducting. The water cooled condenser worked like a champ, and in Brooklyn, residential water supply was unmetered. The discharge of the water cooled condenser was piped into the old ice box drain stack in the attic. Starting that central A/C system was "interesting". I'd first open a 1/2" gate valve under our laundry room sink to send cold water up to the condenser in the attic. When I had let that run for a few minutes, I'd close in the 220 volt breakers on the wall and the unit would rumble into life. This system worked for almost 30 years, and was finally killed by a series of "brownouts" that burnt out the compressor. None of the new breed of A/C contractors would touch that system. I calculated the tonnage of refrigeration that watercooled system produced and it was up around 4 1/2 tons. When the old system croaked, Dad wound up with a "split system"- a condensing unit in the front of the house, reefer tubing running up to the attic on the outside of the house, and a new air handler/evaporator in the attic. The biggest system they could put in was 3 tons, and it did the job, albeit not so interestingly as the old system.
Seeing the old Brunswick reefer compressor that started this thread and your posting of the Brunswick literature brought back the memories. My sister and her husband are quite well to do, and have a fine house. A couple of years back, their kitchen refrigerator bit the dust. I heard assorted bitching about the fact the refrigerator was going to cost them 12 grand. I wondered what kind of kitchen refrigerator could cost 12 grand, and was told it was a high end stainless steel "side by side" unit and had to fit in a given opening in the cabinet lineup. I expected, for those kinds of prices, they'd have a separate condensing unit located outside the house. Not the case. I still find it hard to believe anyone would drop 12 grand on a kitchen refrigerator. We go to our local appliance store, talk to the salesmen, and get a reefer for a whole lot less money. As I put it, the end result is the same- the food stays cold and the frozen food stays frozen. Short of a walk-in type of cooler or freezer, I do not think any "split systems" with separate condensing units are used for refrigerators anymore. Had we had something like that Brunswick system when I was a kid, I'd have been polishing the trim on the gauges and checking belt tension, motor bearing oil, and the compressor oil at least once a day. Nice old machinery, for sure.