DIY fridge uses almost no energy
Who would've thought? Convert your energy-hogging freezer to a fridge and save 90% on energy consumption. This beats EnergyStar.
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Some upright freezers (in the 160- 560 litre range) in South Africa incorporate a variable or 3-position thermostat in the front panel , seems to be a selling point as it can be used as a classic chest freezer, as a large chiller for drinks (entertaining) or a fridge.
Whether it's as energy efficient as Tom Chalko's design is hard to say, considering these brands are at the bottom end of the market - manufacturing costs, profit margins etc take precedence over anything else...which is ironic.... More
For more convenient accessability how about using an upright with drawers like a chest of drawers!?!
that these things make terrible and inconvenient refrigerators. We use the inefficient stand up versions for a reason.
Form the maker of the fridge: "It only works 90 seconds or so every hour."
That will be much more than 2 minutes a day as you wrote.
Also, the plural of Kilowatt is Kilowatts not Kilowatt's
Totally Solar powered fridges are possible at these low consumption levels! Bravo for the off-grid folks, the survivors of the next predictable, natural downturn in the economic cycle! We should all be so lucky! Sustainability must become and American goal if we are to survive the Corporatist grip on our democracy!
The custom thermostat Tom uses looks pretty tricky to put together. I managed to achieve efficiencies of the same order using a chest freezer with a heating thermostat and relay switch. I've explained everything you would need to try it yourself here: http://practicallyoffthegrid.com/2010/02/how-to-make-your-own-high-effic...
Try it out yourself. This modification has been working great for me for a few years.... More
Terrific idea. The entire world should benefit from this idea. it would be better if someone commercializes this.
regards,
Rams
http://www.lyco.co.uk/
Part of the reason this setup is more efficient is that the chest freezers are usually manual defrost models. Your typical refrigerator has an auto-defrost freezer attached to it. The defrosting cycle works by quickly heating up the walls of the freezer to melt the ice, then cooling it back down before the food thaws. It takes extra energy to perform this cycle. So, I would argue that the refrigerator side wasn't the biggest problem to begin with (assuming you keep it pretty full). You've.... More
Am I missing something? Chest style, thus more energy efficient, refrigerators have been around a long time.
I almost purchased one of these like 10 years ago; http://www.sundanzer.com/Home.html
Why didn't I think of this?! Very smart, and I agree - can't wait for them to be more like refrigerators shelves so we can enjoy them like refrigerators! :)
I bought a freezer from Back Woods Solar last year, and they had an option for an external thermostat for converting it to a refrigerator. This would be an option for those of us who aren't quite as handy "under the hood." http://backwoodssolar.com/catalog/refrigerators.htm#External_thermostat
I put my chest freezer on a timer to take it off the grid 9 hours per day, noon to 9 pm.
Deliveries of small upright apartment size ones used to be numerous as they were popular years ago, made in Europe mostly when I was a helper for A&S. I also recall an astronaut built a regulator for refrigerators that saved energy but at the small piece-lot production were about $50 to make, and a difficult sell to consumers though saved energy. Einsteins refrigerator invention should or could be looked at and perhaps integrated into a variety of scenarios, homes, spacecraft, hypersonic.... More
If you can do a little here and a little there, when it comes to saving energy, it all adds up.
