I’m pretty willing to guess that the difference the author gets from a fridge compared to a chest freezer comes to only about four things:.

First, I understand and agree the horizontal door of a freezer is good for retaining the otherwise collapsing and leaking of chilled air, as what occurs when a fridge is opened. The extent of this I do not know.

Secondly I’m willing to argue that the effective difference of a new seal for a fridge and freezer are probably comparable and agree in part that maybe that of the fridge leaks a bit more as years go by. I don’t really know. I trus/hope a clean new versus and old dirty seal was not the real basis for the comparison (I do know that cleaning it will do wonders for either system, as you would see if you ran the so called dollar bill test).

But it seems to me the primary claim for such efficiency is most likely a function of two missing elements in the comparison.

Firstly, if the physical volume and hence the effective outside area of each machine is of the same size, the seals are at least initially equivalent (don’t significantly leak) and the machines are not opened as my fourteen year old son was once inclined to do, speculating on future consumption of mass quantities, then the primary conclusion for heat transfer differences (i.e., energy consumption) is the degree of the insulation package initially installed.

This makes sense to me, because the original manufacturer’s design of the chest freezer is most likely have a better insulation package about the case (after all, it was designed to work from say, 0 F to ambient,, where the fridge was for say 40 F to ambient.) I understand the author uses a temperature controller designed to control the freezer box to a higher temperature, and I trust this meets his complete needs

Still, however, the functionality of the machines are not directly comparable. Simply put, where do the other users put their ice cream (frozen peas, etc. etc?.) Easy to answer in the fridge, but oops not so easy in a chest converted to 40F. Is the solution to buy an entire second freezer for the items to be the frozen? Hmmm. (I’m not the carbon footprint czar, but two motors, two metal boxes, etc?) How does this all add up?

So, to some extent neglecting the arguably true but perhaps overstated benefit of horizontal door, maybe a more pragmatic answer is simply to
1) “wrap” the fridge with more/better insulation,
2) check and keep door seals clean and tight, and
3) put in a three second alarm bell for when your kids space out at the contents! (mostly kidding, but I think alarming it in a humane way may make some sense, if nothing else than for doors inadvertently left ajar.)

ms

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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.

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

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…