Refrigerator

Recently, the Washington Post printed an article explaining how the appliance manufacturers plan to drive consumers insane. Of course, they don't SAY they want to drive us insane. What they SAY they want to do is have us live in homes where "all appliances are on the Internet, sharing information" and appliances will be "smarter than most of their owners. " For example, the article states, you would have a home where the dishwasher "can be turned on from the office" and the refrigerator "knows when it's out of milk" and the bathroom scale "transmits your weight to the gym. " I frankly wonder whether the appliance manufacturers, with all due respect, have been smoking crack.

Summer is the toughest time of the year for the family refrigerator. It may be working overtime for any one of several reasons and can run more efficiently if you keep up the basic maintenance. First, clean it. A properly cleaned refrigerator, inside and out, can make a world of difference. Inside, you should check the drain system that carries condensation from the inside of the unit to the pan, usually located underneath. When condensation occurs in the unit, it is channeled through a tube down to the pan, where it is supposed to evaporate.

Question: What is the most efficient way to run a refrigerator in an unheated garage? My father unplugs his refrigerator and leaves the door open. Unfortunately, at that point all the liquids tend to freeze. Answer: A garage does present some special issues for refrigerators. To avoid the premature compressor failure that can result from oil thickened by colder temperatures (and cause untimely fridge death), the air surrounding a refrigerator must be 55 degrees or higher.

Notice how the refrigerators you see in magazines are hidden behind paneling, as if they have something to be ashamed of. Or they have glass doors through which you see a large, perfect bunch of grapes and a head of lettuce. Never do you see the half-filled mustard jars, ketchup bottles, and yogurt containers full of fuzzy leftovers I have in my fridge. Or the refrigerators are blank slates - pristine, immaculate, untouched. Nothing like real people's refrigerators, which function as combination message center/bulletin board/scrapbook/photo album/art gallery.

From the outside, refrigerators look much the same as they have for years, maybe with a few more gizmos. Internally, they couldn't be more different. In the last three decades, refrigerators have gone from energy wastrels to energy misers. That evolution is an example of the liberating possibilities as the United States faces the consequences of overdependency on fossil fuels, as foreign policy is held hostage by oil-producers abroad, and as the environment suffers at home. Those circumstances should fuel demand for new ideas to wean Americans from wasting scarce resources.

What is this little rotund man to us, this Lech Walesa? Why did the crowds greet him with as much fervor on his whirlwind tour of the United States as they would that other charismatic Pole, the Pope? Why did even political cynics reach out to touch his hand? He holds no formal office. He's not educated. "If I'd been born in America I'd probably have been repairing refrigerators," he quipped in Philadelphia. Nor is he handsome. He has aged and fattened dramatically since the days when his drooping mustache was dark, when he first leaped the shipyard wall to lead the striking workers in Gdansk.

Q: How can I post artwork, schedules and pictures on my stainless-steel refrigerator, since it is not magnetized? A: The smooth, bare expanse of a gleaming new stainless steel refrigerator looks clean and modern, and works in nearly any kitchen. The material, an alloy of steel designed to resist corrosion, may contain additional elements to increase its strength and resiliency. But these added elements can also cancel out steel's magnetic properties, making it impossible for you to personalize it with your photos and kids' art projects.

Ah, the fridge - chamber of sustenance, vessel of life, keeper of the Swiss Miss chocolate pudding. We are what we eat, and what we eat is in the fridge. But what's inside the almond-colored side-by-side Amana is only one side of the story. What we really - really - hold dear is posted on the outside of the refrigerator: The yellowed Far Side cartoon of the smoking dinosaurs. Pictures of the new baby niece. The souvenir rubber elephant refrigerator magnet from the zoo. Our son's latest crayon rendition of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Is your refrigerator eating you out of house and home? Chances are, if it's more than 10 years old, it's gulping enough energy to put a serious hurt on your wallet. Now that the federal stimulus bill is funneling $300 million into rebates for energy-efficient appliances, perhaps it's time to consider upgrading. Even though the money isn't available now and the rules haven't been set up, common sense says that whenever the program begins, you'll want to be ready. With 112 million households in the country, that $300 million won't go far. Over all, the trusty fridge is one heck of a guzzler, using anywhere from 5 percent to 8 percent of household energy, more than any other appliance.

Police went to a house in North Philadelphia last night and found three young women being held captive in chains in the basement. They also found a human arm in a refrigerator. The officers went to the house on Marshall Street near Tioga after a fourth woman, 26, showed up at the 25th District Station, Front and Westmoreland streets, about 11 p.m. and told police she had escaped from the basement prison but that others were still being held there. The owner of the house, a 43-year-old man, was later found sitting in a parked car at a garage at 6th Street and Girard Avenue and was arrested.

Q: How can I post artwork, schedules and pictures on my stainless-steel refrigerator, since it is not magnetized? A: The smooth, bare expanse of a gleaming new stainless steel refrigerator looks clean and modern, and works in nearly any kitchen. The material, an alloy of steel designed to resist corrosion, may contain additional elements to increase its strength and resiliency. But these added elements can also cancel out steel's magnetic properties, making it impossible for you to personalize it with your photos and kids' art projects.

Problems with the refrigeration system at the long-anticipated, much-touted Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market are forcing a one-month delay in opening the facility on Essington Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia, spokeswoman Mia DeFino said Thursday. Vendors were told March 31 to expect to remain at the old location, on Galloway Street in South Philadelphia, until May 1, said David Levin, whose company, M. Levin & Co., has been in the produce business for 105 years. Built with $218 million in private and public funding, the market was dubbed "the world's largest refrigerator" at a ribbon-cutting ceremony March 25. Trucks coming in from the Port of Philadelphia would be able to back into docking doors and unload without breaking the "cold chain," ensuring that the produce would stay fresh longer.

Highly motivated, Gene doesn't want to be shackled to cholesterol-lowering drugs for life and would prefer to shed those excess pounds. That's why he and his family - wife Karen, 10-year-old daughter Haley, and 8-year-old son Luke - courageously agreed to let me raid their refrigerator, eliminating the diet-busting foods hiding there. Already a fitness buff, Gene plays gym hockey in a competitive league, so he has good cardiovascular endurance. The entire Fatula clan trains and studies karate.

Question: What is the most efficient way to run a refrigerator in an unheated garage? My father unplugs his refrigerator and leaves the door open. Unfortunately, at that point all the liquids tend to freeze. Answer: A garage does present some special issues for refrigerators. To avoid the premature compressor failure that can result from oil thickened by colder temperatures (and cause untimely fridge death), the air surrounding a refrigerator must be 55 degrees or higher.

Question: I have a wood stove in my great room with a heat pump return in the ceiling about seven feet from the stove pipe. I have another return in the hallway, which is about 15 to 18 feet from the return in the great room. When the door to the bedroom that is next to the return in the hallway is closed, there is an odor of smoke that comes from the heat vents in the great room. I would think it is related to the wood stove but it happens when the stove is not in use and is cleaned out. It also happens when the air conditioning is on in the summer.

Question: We recently had our bathroom remodeled and chose marble countertops as well as accents in the shower. The marble began to discolor. We called the company that did the remodel and they sent in their marble people to repolish the marble. That was about a month ago, and the stains have reappeared. What can we do to restore, clean, polish, and prevent this from happening? We do try to keep the marble clean and free from water spots, and have used just about every commercial product available to us with poor results.

When David and Carole Alfe bought a six-bedroom Colonial Revival house in Camden County, they knew it needed a lot of work. "It reminded me of working on a battleship," says Carole Alfe, 55, museum-shop manager at the Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania. "At times, we kicked ourselves for buying it," adds husband David Alfe, 54, a therapist. But all the effort has paid off. The house is now their home, and one that stays as close to the period as possible. The Alfes, who married in 2000, decided to move out of their three-bedroom twin in Ardmore because of David's job in New Jersey.

You're committed to curbside recycling. Now, how do you tackle the tough stuff? Check out these solutions for seven hard-to-recycle items. Freezing out inefficient models reaps cool rewards. Most appliances can be tricky to dispose of properly. Refrigerators and freezers in particular are required by law to be properly recycled because of their hazardous components. Best Steps: If you're replacing an old refrigerator, first check with your local utility. Just by getting rid of an inefficient but functioning model, you may qualify for a rebate and free removal.

The location in Southwest Philadelphia is hardly glamorous: a former junkyard bordered by an oil refinery tank farm. But something extraordinary is happening there in these punishing recessionary times. Something is being built. The Philadelphia Regional Produce Market, a $218.5 million public-private project born of controversy - including a threat to move to New Jersey - is projected to employ 1,500 and ring up $1.6 billion in sales annually when it opens in fall 2010. Twenty-seven vendors will move there from the 50-year-old Food Distribution Center, a cramped 300,000-square-foot facility near Citizens Bank Park.

Of the many constants in the life of an American refrigerator - the bottle of ketchup, multiple jars of mustard, the stick of butter - one stands out for its rhythmic message of stubbornness, thrift, and hope. It is the iconic takeout carton of leftover Chinese rice. Whether saved post-dining out or after a delivered meal, the box quickly transforms into a white brick, presumably waiting in the cold to save the day as a quick, plain bowl of sustenance or to be softened by heat into some unknown but creative culinary venture.