Article 1048403 of alt.home.repair: Path: news.misty.com!not-for-mail From: nicksanspam@ece.villanova.edu Newsgroups: alt.home.repair Subject: Re: Garage heater kit for fridge? Date: 27 Sep 2008 11:14:32 -0400 Organization: Villanova University Lines: 30 Message-ID: References: <5XoDk.1619$ZP4.1162@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: acadia.ece.villanova.edu X-Trace: max.inside.misty.com 1222528474 26702 153.104.44.130 (27 Sep 2008 15:14:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@misty.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:14:34 +0000 (UTC) Xref: news.misty.com alt.home.repair:1048403 Edwin Pawlowski wrote: > > wrote in message > >> I just bought an 18.2 CF Hotpoint fridge. I'd like to cover the outside >> with 2" foamboard and run it in a cool kitchen to reduce the energy used >> from 480 kWh/year to 240 or so, but Hotpoints don't come with these kits. >> Would leaving the light on all the time in the fridge compartment do >> the same thing? Is there a more energy-efficient way to do this? Warming >> the whole fridge box takes more power than just warming the thermostat. > >Warming the fridge box is dumb too, as the food will be getting warm along >with the thermostat. The thermostat would still control the fridge temp. The Hotpoint manual says don't run it in a room cooler than 60 F... 2" of extra foamboard would lower the fridge box conductance to about 2 Btu/h-F and the freezer conductance to about 1, so the freezer would need about 40 Btu/h of cooling at 0 F in a 40 F room, which might come from a 15 watt bulb in a 40 F fridge box that runs whenever the room is less than 60 F. If the light uses 15 watts and the fridge uses 5, on average, that's 20x24h = 480 Wh/day, ie 175 kWh/year if the room were always 40 F or 26x24h = 624 Wh/day if the room were always 70 F. It would be nice to get this down to 100 Wh, like the Mt. Best chest freezer fridge modification. With better controls, it might only need 5x23h = 120 Wh/day. Nick