Introduction

Glass fridge and freezer display doors have become the norm in restaurants, cafes, clubs, corner shops, service stations, and supermarkets. Several problems however are the high cost of manufacture, maintenance, and operation. The Eco Door™ is a revolutionary new concept in fridge and freezer door design and construction which addresses these issues.

The Eco Door™ employs, for the first time, an extruded highly efficient thermal plastics frame incorporating glass pane mounting surfaces and mirror-welded corners. It is set to replace complex conventional glass doors using conductive metal frames, metal spacer bars, and internal heaters to overcome condensation.

Named The Eco Door™ due to its ability to drastically reduce fridge and freezer operating costs, substantially reduce refrigerator and freezer manufacturing costs and remove entirely the need for glass panel and frame heating,¹ it will provide annual savings of billions of dollars as well as substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions - the greatest contributor to greenhouse gasses.

In an effort to address climate change, governments around the globe have begun introducing standards for insulation and energy consumption in both domestic and commercial refrigeration. The Australian Greenhouse Office for example, has recently published the Minimum Performance Standards for Commercial Refrigeration.²

In America, industry self-regulation has been adopted in a similar recognition of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the Chairman of Coca Cola, Doug Daft, has announced that:

“in accordance with the international Kyoto Agreement on climate change, the company is requiring suppliers to develop, by the end of the decade, new equipment that is 40 percent to 50 percent more energy efficient than today's”.³

The Eco Door™ meets and indeed exceeds these long term goals today.

The new design can also provide immediate energy savings to fridges and freezers currently in operation by replacing existing doors with The Eco Door™.

With increased efficiency, smaller compressors can be employed further reducing manufacturing and operating costs. In addition, outlets using The Eco Door™ technology will experience additional savings with reduced air-conditioning costs.

The Eco Door™ is the subject of an international patent⁴ and we are currently seeking expressions of interest from parties interested in its commercialisation.