Refrigerator Insulation

[jjackstone]

Here is a project I have been considering for a couple years. The fridge in the house is an older frost free version that is pretty much an energy pig. My roommate owns the house and is not able to replace it at this time so that isn't a good option. It normally consumes between 3 and 3.5Kwh/day. I have had a Kill A Watt on it for a couple years. While inspecting new fridges I noticed that most of the Energy star rated ones had at least two inches of insulation. The one at the house only has about an inch. A few days ago I put some 2 inch Foamular 150(pink foam) on the top and sides of the refrigerator to see if it would make a difference in energy usage.

For the four days previous to that, we were using 3.16Kwh/day.
For the last three days, the usage is down to 2.6Kwh/day.

That's a 17% decrease. The ambients have been pretty steady for the past week so no big differences there. We are not using the refrigerator any differently than normal.

Total cost of this project +$21.00.

Our electricity rates including taxes average about 15 cents/Kwh. So a savings of .56Kwh/day has a payback time of about 250 days. Cheaper than buying a new fridge at the moment.

If anyone else should decide to try this, just be aware that the condensor coils for the fridge are often somewhere in the walls rather than the rear. All I did was feel for hot spots. I never really felt any hot spots on the sides or top but the front dividing wall gets warm while the compressor runs. One reason I didn't cover the front also.

Probably won't run this experiment too long as my roomie is more concerned with aesthetics than I am(and it's her house). However, as I thought about that issue, I think a quick 3M spray on adhesive and some nice cloth could improve the looks inexpensively.

I have a few pix attached.

Enjoy,
JJ