Ferranti Fridge-Heater

Ferranti model FH6004 fridge-heater.

The Ferranti Fridge Heater was an ingenious household appliance that provided hot water at the same time as keeping food cool.

Few 1950s British homes had refrigerators to keep food cold and fresh. Instead, many houses stored their food in a small cool room called a larder, where thick walls and heavy marble shelves helped keep the temperature down. With homes commonly still heated by burning coal, neither did that many people have hot water available at the turn of a tap yet.

The Ferranti Fridge Heater was a single machine that solved both these issues. Installed inside the larder, it used a heat pump to extract heat from the room, making the larder cooler. It then used that heat to warm up water. It even produced ice and was said to cost half as much as running a separate refrigerator and water heater. Developed by a team that included Basil de Ferranti, the grandson of the firm’s founder Sebastian de Ferranti, it was manufactured at Ferranti’s Domestic Appliance Division in Moston, North Manchester. On sale from 1955, the Fridge Heater was only made for a few years, as Ferranti left the domestic appliance market in 1958.