posted 8 years ago
So, our house fridge is gimpy. I.e. only 2 of the for shelves have no random freezing issues, and the door likes randomly not closing. I hooked up the kilowatt to it to try to bring enough evidence against it to dump it. It turns out that even at the low efficiency of about 1200kwh/year a new one will only pay for itself in 8 years, at best. Additionally, this thing is so old the spot it occupies will not fit the modern standard fridge size. In other words, it's battling for it's life.
I am trying to come up with a better battle plan. Now, I should add in the important detail that I live in an area where 6 months of the year it gets cold enough to be a fridge or freezer outside. So I walk past this cooler thing and shake my head at that lack of efficiency for 6 months. Then we also have a spot in the basement I plan on insulating and making into a cool storage... Because it's asking for it. And, I hope to put all the extra goodies I get from the garden in there when I get up to maturity. And canned goods. Maybe some pickles too. It will be maintained at about 50 degrees, which may not require much more than insulation on my part.
We also have a high efficiency chest cooler for most of our frozen needs. The current fridge has an awful freezer space that can't even fit a frozen pizza. I think that's a crime in some countries. In other words, if we need frozen stuff, it's usually in another spot, not the main fridge. Which makes me scowl at it more.
So what the fridge actually does is store drinks, condiments, cheese, some veggies, and leftovers. We pay $135/year for it to perform this task. So really, I shouldn't be complaining... but, review above mentioned critiques.
I was thinking maybe the best thing to do would be to make a air-conditioned shelf that cools but also has a valve to the outdoors, to pull in cold air during the times it will not need energy driven cooling. But, I don't want to spend lots of $$ on a project that is... uh... gimpier than what I got or more costly in the long run. I know coolbots plus the air conditioner can cost $700, but I heard there's ways of rigging things cheaper. I wouldn't mind $400 if it costs about $2 to run a year.
Anyone know what the efficiency of these units tends to be? Would it maybe be better to take the fridge cooling unit out or convert it to a hybrid winter/summer cooler? Are there other alternatives?
Is it possible I'm really fridging more than needed? We try to be fridge minimalists.
Thanks for the insight. Sorry to be long winded.
Work smarter, not harder.