While searching for something else, I came across a very interesting article about radically reducing the energy consumed by a refrigerator.
The target audience for this article is people who are living off the grid, and are trying to maintain many of the aspects of civilization, in this case, refrigeration. The beauty of this is that all of the ideas given here will help in reducing power consumed no matter where you live.
The ideas range from mild (check the door gasket) to wild (cut a hole in the north side of your house for the heat dissipation coils to protrude from).
Of particular interest to me is the idea that refrigerator's energy use can be reduced by more efficiently extracting the waste heat by water-cooling the condenser coils. The water used to cool the coils can become water pre-heat for domestic hot water... a double win!
Definitely
food for thought here.
Topics include:
- Minimize both the frequency and the duration of door opening(s).
- Check the door gasket.
- Don’t overload the refrigerator.
- Correctly set the dial thermostat.
- Re-examine the refrigerator’s contents weekly.
- Evaluate the refrigerator’s size.
- Siting the Refrigerator.
- Maintain clearance around the refrigerator.
- Design alcoves properly.
- Consider alternative refrigerator sites.
- Trade in frost-free units.
- Insulate the refrigerator.
- Re-locate the HDC (heat-dissipating coils).
- Build a hybrid refrigerator/water heater.
- Use a horizontal refrigerator rather than a vertical one.
- Use a 110-Volt AC standby generator.
- Use an inverter.
- Modify the motor-compressor unit.
- Replace the motor-compressor unit with another that matches your system.
- Power the refrigerator with a battery charger.
- Convert the unit to the correct fuel.
- Modify the gas refrigerator for AC or DC operation.
- Purchasing a new refrigerator
- Purchase and modify an old 110-volt refrigerator.
- Purchase an RV- or PV-type refrigerator.
- Find and buy a Servel (or other brand of gas) refrigerator.
- Build your own refrigerator using a solid-state module.
- Refrigeration alternatives
- Build and use a root cellar.
- Learn canning for foodstuffs.
- Dehydrate your food.
- Control and “pace” your food supply.
This guy is no stranger to thinking outside the box. Lots of great ideas.
Curiously, the idea of
converting a freezer to a refrigerator was not mentioned.
-AC_Hacker