Product: Refrigerator: Cooling
Dualwave II   (+2, -3)  [vote for, against]
heat and cool at the same time

This device is a refrigerator with the 'cooling' coils enclosed in a second insulated box. Therefore the 'waste' heat from cooling one thing can be used to warm up something else.

Also has exactly the same appearance as a microwave, only 15% larger, and 2 doors.
-- Loris, Oct 03 2005

(?) original 'dualwave' instant gratification
instant gratification [Loris, Oct 03 2005]

The cooling coils of my refrigerator are immersed in the atmosphere of my home, which requires warming.
-- wagster, Oct 03 2005


The COP will drop rapidly as the temperature of your insulated box increases. Before you get hot enough to cook anything, it will be more efficient to heat and cool the usual way.
-- ldischler, Oct 03 2005


You could preheat water for the water heater. This might make the frig a little more efficient and conserve a bit of energy.
-- cjacks, Oct 03 2005


//You could preheat water for the water heater.//

Actually this is what I've been thinking the main fridge/freezer should do for a while. (Or rather, it should contribute to the hot-water maintainance rather than pre-heat it - I've already earmarked the drain water for preheating using a counter-current heat exchanger.)

But having read the 'dualwave', I just couldn't resist the concept in kitchen apparatus form-factor.
-- Loris, Oct 03 2005


aw, nuts, the original dualwave's gone. If memory serves, it was supposed to be a device which cooled an item rapidly by squirting it with precooled liquid, and was obsessed with having the appearance of a microwave.
-- Loris, Jul 07 2008


//You could preheat water for the water heater// I would bun that idea, but the idea as presented, needs help.
-- MisterQED, Jul 07 2008


I'm reading this eight-year-old idea and thinking how prescient it was. As a cooking appliance it stinks; the oven doesn't have the capacity to sink the heat removed from the refrigerator, but as an idea it's valid. We have since seen it in the form of a water heater.

In the water heater application, an AC coil picks up unwanted heat from the living space and dumps it into the water tank; this same concept could go into a tempering tank upstream of the water heater.
-- elhigh, Sep 13 2013



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