"it's on a timer to shut off"
Why? I keep reading this here. We've got a bunch of people who are running thermostat settings with temperatures right on the edge of quick food spoilage and they use a timer so that there is a period of the day where you let the refrigerator and freezer get even warmer than the marginal temperature for safe food storage.
Take this thought for a moment. If you have a timer that shuts off your freezer/fridge for, say even only 4 hours, and right before the fridge is about to lose its power, it goes into a defrost cycle, then a minute after the defrost cycle is over and the compressor and fan are churning the hot air in the coil chamber into the fridge, you cut the power to it. Whenever my refrigerator runs its defrost cycle, the refrigerator temp raises about 5 degrees and it takes about 5 minutes of compressor operation to even hit the peak temperature before it even begins to cool back down. It takes about 30 mins of running to recover from a defrost cycle.
Running these timers is a great way to destroy your food. Why don't you let your thermostat hold the temperature where it should be rather than thinking you have something to gain by powering the refrigerator off at a point when it might have just about turned on, or worse been in the middle of a defrost cycle or its recovery.
My milk jug recommends milk temperature to be 34-38 degrees. I make sure that my refrigerator starts the compressor to cool things off right before it hits 38 degrees. Even then I'm a little concerned about my food in case there is a power outage right when I took off for work when I set it that close.
We are talking about a temperature difference of 60 degrees outside to inside for the freezer and about 35 for the refrigerator. 5 degrees isn't going to be that much additional energy and the cost will be minimal, far less than what it costs to get sick or to stuck with throwing away food.
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