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Old 07-09-17, 09:18 PM   #4
MN Renovator
Less usage=Cheaper bills
 
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..well not necessarily the way this works. I've let me house drop down into the 40s in the winter when nobody would be home for awhile and the fridge will use about 10 watts less. 130 watts instead of 140 watts but it will also run much longer cycles too and then spend much longer periods of time with the fridge off. It's counterintuitive but repeatable. In the end it uses less energy because it's rejecting less total heat entering the box from the room. I've even unplugged the fan to allow the condenser coil to get warmer but it still runs a cycle roughly the same amount of time but the wattage increases as the exterior coil heats up.

Compressor noise doesn't really change with the condenser temp, it's very noticeably louder when the evap temperature is hotter, such as when a defrost cycle just finished and the compressor is just powering up.
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