Dictionary

ton of refrigeration en · NOUN

Etymology

Since the 1880s, as explained in Wikipedia at ton of refrigeration § History.

Meanings

1. (US) A unit of power chiefly applied to the cooling capacity of a refrigerator, freezer, or air conditioner, equal to 12,000 British thermal units (Btu) per hour (200 Btu per minute); it denotes the amount of heat required to melt one short ton of ice in 24 hours.
   • The short crop of ice, owing to the phenomenally mild winter, has given quite an impetus to the manufacture of ice making machines and mechanical refrigerators. These machines have attained great perfection within the last ten years, and are extensively used by hotels, breweries, abattoirs, packing houses and steamers, and, in fact, wherever the purchase of natural ice has become a prime necessity of economy. This season has more than doubled the demand for these machines. It takes about four months to turn out the larger ones, such as are used in breweries or large hotels. In New York there is only one ice-making machine, and that is at Murray Hill Hotel. Another has been placed in the new Plaza Hotel. The former is a nine ton machine, with a capacity for making five tons of ice and thirteen tons of refrigeration in twenty-four hours. The new Plaza Hotel has a fifty-ton machine. The Murray Hill apparatus has connections with forty-four refrigerators covering a space of 13,000 cubic feet. To do this work costs on an average $8.10 per day, which includes everything pertaining to the machine, and this sum is equivalent to five tons of ice, while twenty-five tons would not perform the same amount of work. This machine cost $13,000. 1890 August 2, “Making ice and refrigerating by machinery [reprinted in The Engineer courtesy of Progressive Age]”, in The Engineer, volume 20, number 3, page 34:
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see ton, of, refrigeration.

Forms

Relateds

TR · ton of TNT · RT · ToR

Synonyms

refrigeration ton

wikipedia: ton of refrigeration#History · wikidata: Q3332689