Nevera

Timeline of Refrigerators

By Gabriel Alonso
  • 1700 BCE

    First ice houses

    First ice houses
    An ice house, or icehouse, is a building used to store ice throughout the year, commonly used prior to the invention of the refrigerator. Some were underground chambers, usually man-made, close to natural sources of winter ice such as freshwater lakes, but many were buildings with various types of insulation.
  • 500 BCE

    Yakhchāl

    Yakhchāl
    Yakhchāl is an ancient type of ice house that functions as an evaporative cooler. Above ground, the structure had a domed shape, but had a subterranean storage space. It was often used to store ice, but sometimes was used to store food as well.

  • First public documented demonstration

    First public documented demonstration
    The first artificial refrigeration was demonstrated by William Cullen at the University of Glasgow, Scotland in 1748. In his demonstration, Cullen used a pump to create a small vacuum over a container of diethyl ether.

  • First refrigeration machine

    First refrigeration machine
    The first closed circuit refrigeration machine was invented. Its inventor was Oliver Evans and its design was based on the vapor-compression refrigeration cycle.

  • First commercial ice making machine

    First commercial ice making machine
    Andrew Muhl built an ice-making machine in San Antonio, Texas, to help service the expanding beef industry before moving it to Waco in 1871.

  • Production of icemakers

    Production of icemakers
    In 1873, the patent for this machine was contracted by the Columbus Iron Works, which produced the world's first commercial icemakers.

  • ASHRAE was founded

    ASHRAE was founded
    America Society of Refrigerating Engineers was founded.

  • Einstein refrigerator

    Einstein refrigerator
    The Einstein–Szilard or Einstein refrigerator is an absorption refrigerator which has no moving parts, operates at constant pressure, and requires only a heat source to operate. It was jointly invented in 1926 by Albert Einstein and his former student Leó Szilárd, who patented it in the U.S. on November 11, 1930

  • Icy Ball

    Icy Ball
    David Forbes Keith of Toronto, Ontario, Canada patented “The Icy Ball”, a type of early refrigerator that didn’t use electricity for cooling but a burning cup of kerosene. It helped hundreds of thousands of families through the time of Dust Bowl.

  • Present

    Present
    Refrigerator is present in 99.5% of developed country homes.