Dimensional ingenuity?

A few links from a quick search using: white goods not manufactured in china

No idea if any will give you the info you want, but it's a start.

Right. I'll give them a go this evening.

Ta.

You are lucky, when I typed in chest freezers the top one was some kind of female sex toy! Brian

Thats because your searches are always for sex toys, you deviate.

thicker than they used to be. Fibre pads not used on the bottom anymore, they used to saturate.

Maybe not magic, but aerogel insulation can be much more effective than most other types. See this for example:

The new freezer (Russell Hobbs RH198CF3003) is now arriving Saturday. I will measure the interior and report back.

Given how cheaply fridges/freeers are built, what are the chances that they use aerogel?

Zero. According to

Yes, probably zero, but I have seen it at much lower prices. A few moments searching found 10mm thick aerogel insulation at USD22 per m^2 from Alibaba. So that would be about USD102 for 50 sq ft for twice the thickness. Freezer manufacturers would buy in vast quantities, so the cost would be a lot lower. There are also various composites consisting of aerogel granules embedded in a polymer matrix. These are much less expensive than the pure aerogel but don't have quite such good performance. They are probably made from scrap from the production of the better grades.

I once handled a large block of very high purity aerogel which had been made for a Starwars project. It is really strange stuff - almost transparent, and incredibly light. The idea was that it would provide very high rigidity to a lightweight mirror such the the overall composite would have an extremely low angular moment of inertia to allow a high-power laser beam to be pointed very rapidly. Here is something similar, but smaller:

It can take the heat of a bunsen burner.

It is pretty magical.

Someone insulated a livingroom in London with the stuff, in the process of writing an article about the material. Surely one of the most expensive "sampling" stories going.

That's like going to the Mint and bringing home some "sample gold bricks".

Paul

True, but as aerogel has been around for decades, it begs the question as to why they haven't done it. Probably too expensive compared to expanded polystyrene.

Interesting. I wonder if they could use something similar for space telescope mirrors.

The first time I saw a demo of aerogel was, I think on "Tomorrow's World" many years ago. They had a cube-shaped piece used for space re-entry tiles, and had heated it to a glowing red-white with a gas flame. The presenter then picked it up for several seconds using his finger and thumb on opposing corners. It was most impressive.

It has all sorts of uses - my hi-fi speaker cones are made of it.

The large block that I saw was intended for a space-based high-power laser. The idea was that it could rotate very quickly to point the laser beam at multiple high-velocity targets in quick succession. The fact that I was allowed to see it suggests that the project did not reach fruition. I think this was in the late 1980s.

That would be a very good application.

John

I've never held any of it, but have the impression it's very fragile?

It crumbles very easily and sucks the oil out of your skin so it needs to be handled with gloves. I imagine a speaker cone would have a thin protective coating. John

Would it be worth adding another layer to the bottom (internally), with 'celotex' carefully cut to size so that it is a tight fit ?. Seal the cut edges with foil tape and also run a band of foil tape at the function between the added base layer and the walls.

Likely to not withstand de-frosting attacks by the user:-( She finds it very hard to resist diving in with bowls of hot water followed by any convenient scraping device:-( Offers of hot air blowers are spurned. The Russell Hobbs unit has a de-frost drain so we'll see how it goes.