Revco equipment

About Revco

Revco is an American manufacturer of laboratory refrigeration and cold storage equipment, founded in 1938 in Asheville, United States. It began as the Refrigerated Equipment Vending Company, selling refrigerated vending machines, before pivoting to the laboratory cold storage work it is now known for. The brand is part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, which took on the Revco line when Thermo Electron acquired Kendro from SPX Corporation, a transaction completed in May 2005. Its equipment spans ultra-low temperature freezers, laboratory refrigerators and freezers, CO2 incubators, ovens and furnaces, water baths, and cryogenic storage. The best-known product families are the Value, Elite, Ultima II, UxF, ExF and RDE lines. On Questpair, 83 used units are listed by verified suppliers and distributors.

Revco cold storage and freezer lines

The notable families divide roughly by where they sit in the cold chain and by how much they are specified. The Ultima II and the UxF and ExF designations belong to the ultra-low temperature end, the freezers that reach minus 86 degrees Celsius and hold samples for the long term. The Value and Elite names mark positioning within those ranges, Value toward the practical baseline and Elite toward higher specification. The RDE designation covers further cold storage configurations. Across all of them the refrigeration principle is the same: a cascade or single-stage compressor system drives the chamber down and holds it there, with the differences lying in capacity, controller sophistication, pull-down time and recovery after a door opening. On a used unit these are the attributes worth confirming against the line's published figures.

Beyond the ultra-low freezers, the broader category list puts Revco across the rest of a lab's temperature needs. Laboratory refrigerators and freezers cover reagent and sample storage at standard chilled and frozen temperatures. Water baths provide controlled warm temperature for incubation and sample heating. Laboratory ovens and furnaces take the range in the other direction, toward drying and high-temperature processing.

Several of these classes do defined work in biotechnology and the life sciences. CO2 incubators run cell culture, maintaining the temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide atmosphere that mammalian cells need to grow, which places them at the centre of molecular biology and cell biology laboratories. Ultra-low temperature freezers preserve the material that this work produces and depends on: enzyme and antibody stocks, the viable cell banks held for cell culture and bioprocessing, and the nucleic acid samples that feed genomics and proteomics. Cryogenic storage carries that preservation down to liquid-nitrogen temperatures for the indefinite archiving of cell lines and primary tissue. A minus 86 ultra-low freezer is also used for the long-term storage of plasmids and reagents in synthetic biology and gene editing, and for the biobanking that underpins molecular diagnostics, where patient-derived samples must stay stable over years. Water baths serve the routine thermal steps of molecular biology, from reagent thawing to controlled incubation in protein purification and immunoassay protocols.

Revco equipment on Questpair

The Questpair catalogue for this brand is used-only, 100 percent of the 83 listings. Prices run from EUR 89 to EUR 93.058. The average listing price is EUR 3.373. 9 verified suppliers and distributors offer these units across 3 countries, which gives a buyer room to compare condition and configuration. Where a listed unit needs spare parts, those can be sourced via Questpair, and a warranty can often be arranged in consultation for the specific listing. For documentation on a particular model, a buyer can contact Questpair and specialists respond within an hour.

Questpair review of Revco

Our take based on listings data and supplier feedback

Revco occupies a settled position in laboratory cold storage, and the three points below hold up when the catalogue is read against what the brand actually makes.

The first is breadth across the temperature range. Revco does not sit in a single niche. The primary categories run from laboratory refrigerators and water baths, which hold samples and reagents at or near ambient and chilled temperatures, through CO2 incubators used for cell culture, up to ultra-low temperature freezers that reach minus 86 degrees Celsius for long-term sample archiving. Cryogenic storage extends the range further down. For a lab that would otherwise buy cold storage from several makers, this matters on a practical level: service relationships, spare inventory and operator familiarity carry across the whole range rather than fragmenting across vendors. On Questpair the listed equipment reflects this spread, which lets a buyer assemble a cold chain from one brand without committing to new pricing on every tier.

The second point concerns the named product families. Revco Value, Revco Elite, Revco Ultima II, Revco UxF, Revco ExF and Revco RDE are recognised designations, each tied to a positioning the specialist community understands. A used freezer identified by its line can be matched to published specifications, to known chamber volumes, and to the right door seals, controllers and shelving. That traceability is the difference between a defensible second-hand purchase and a guess. Service technicians who have worked on these units know their failure points and their maintenance intervals, which shortens the diagnostic time on any unit that needs attention after installation. Where parts are required, they can be sourced via Questpair.

The third point is the catalogue itself. Every Revco listing here is a used unit, 100 percent of the total. Prices run from EUR 89 to EUR 93.058. That lower figure reaches entry-level items such as water baths and smaller accessories, while the upper end covers large ultra-low freezers that would command a far higher price new. The average sits at EUR 3.373, which gives a sense of where the bulk of serious cold storage lands. 9 verified suppliers and distributors list across 3 countries, so a buyer has more than one source to compare condition and configuration against.

Two cautions belong in any honest reading. Because the catalogue is used-only, condition varies by individual listing, and a freezer's compressor hours, seal integrity and controller state are the things to confirm before committing. A warranty is not automatic on a used unit, though one can often be arranged in consultation for the specific listing. None of this is a mark against the equipment itself; it is simply the nature of buying cold storage second-hand, where the saving against new comes with the obligation to inspect. Read that way, a Revco unit on Questpair is a known quantity from a maker with a long institutional record, priced below its new equivalent.

**Cold storage depth across the temperature range**

Revco builds across the full cold chain, from laboratory refrigerators and water baths to ultra-low temperature freezers that hold samples at minus 86 degrees Celsius, so a single maker covers most of a lab's storage needs.

**Named product families with known service histories**

The Value, Elite, Ultima II, UxF and ExF lines are widely documented and recognised by service technicians, which makes a used Revco unit on Questpair easier to identify, specify and maintain than an unbranded equivalent.

**A used-only catalogue at tested price points**

Every Revco listing on Questpair is a used unit, with prices spanning EUR 89 to EUR 93.058 from 9 verified suppliers and distributors, giving a lab a wide band of options against the cost of new cold storage.