Comments on: Man Retrofits Freezer to Make an Ultra-Efficient Fridge

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:06:38 +0000

“Watts an hour”? Yeah, I feel like you really know what you’re talking about…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:16:40 +0000

the thermostat runs on batteries, not the freezer.

By: selfsustained

selfsustained — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 07:00:26 +0000

¨00goddess¨ He is not in the US and did his research locally withing his budget, I think you suffer from deep routed inferiority syndrome by trying to say how much better you dream to be with your improved version made of plain air. Its a great idea and please go and use that BS meter on yourself.

By: Mika

Mika — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 07:42:10 +0000

I have actually made one of these for my house. I didn’t get as good stats as the aussie did for my fridge, but I used a similar method.

I bought a thermometer controller, for converting any fridge or freezer into a kegorator (they are about $54 on Amazon), then you just put the thermometer in the freezer, plug the freezer into the thermometer control unit, and it turns it on and off to maintain the temp.

Anyhow I now have a fridge that consume 10-11 watts an hour, which is fantastic (my ikea fluorescent lights use the same amount of electricity per bulb, if that helps you compare). I use a combination of freezer baskets, and stacking of stuff to make it work for our house. Even running the matching freezer I purchased to use as a freezer, the total energy usage comes out to that of a sunfrost refrigerator/freezer combo (that is running one unit as a freezer, and one as a refrigerator), at about a cost of $500 for the freezers and controller.

By: 00goddess

00goddess — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 00:56:28 +0000

One thing tips off my bullshit meter: he says that he contacted leading fridge manufacturers and found that no one was making or testing a chest fridge. This isn’t true- these are available in the U.S. They are being installed in many new luxury homes. They are built-in under the counter and pull out like large drawers. This solves the item arrangement issue that he has- the drawers are not as deep as is his chest, so it is easy to arrange things. Also, you can adjust the thermostat on each drawer to suit the food inside.

Still, this is a great idea, very inexpensive, and I might do it myself when we get a house. I already have some ideas for improvement

By: Jan!

Jan! — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 03:51:56 +0000

f9: it says the thermostat runs on batteries, not the entire freezer/fridge.

By: beev

beev — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 03:59:37 +0000

It appears to be plugged into some kind of meter, perhaps for measuring the energy consumption?

By: f9

f9 — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 03:19:56 +0000

Well, if it runs on two AAA batteries, why is it plugged in to 230V (or whatever they have in Australia)?

By: Kitchen Contraptions.com

Kitchen Contraptions.com — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 19:39:48 +0000

Man Retrofits Freezer to Make an Ultra-Efficient Fridge

I’ve been off the grid this week in Northern California and the one thing I would really want is a bigger freezer. Yes – we have power and a fridge, but it’s not big enough to hold everything for…

By: Christopher

Christopher — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 22:15:35 +0000

That’s a fantastic idea! I’ll keep searching for more efficient refrigerators, but the best I could find this morning was on http://www.lehmans.com. They sell Sunfrost refrigerators that claim 18 kWh/month. At that rate, they’ve used as much energy in two months as the modified chest freezer will use all year.