Cool Your Fridge with Ice from Outdoors?

Yeah, it's weird. Winter weather renders your refrigerator a cooled box inside of a heated box inside of cooled surroundings. On that subject, we just read this from a reader at the website of efficiency expert Mr. Electricity.

"I was inspired this month to unplug my refrigerator and cool just with ice that I can make outdoors. I can keep the refrigerator at 45 degrees for about five days with a couple of big pot fulls of ice. It had occurred to me how wasteful it was to be cooling something in the winter in a northern climate! It takes more attention and effort than just having a plugged-in refrigerator, but perhaps there are others out there that might also try this if they were given the idea."

Mr. Electricity thinks this reader is onto something, and adds that she doesn't even need to unplug the fridge. The compressor won't kick on as long as the ice is cooling enough. And if the ice isn't enough, the fridge will be ready to kick on when needed.

Has anyone ever tried this in the winter months? Read more on getting the most efficiency out of your refrigerator right here. Two more simple tips we gleaned from the reading: locate your fridge on an exterior wall and make sure you allow 2" of space on all sides for proper air circulation.

Image: Polar Trec

Posted originally from: AT:Chicago

Good idea.

posted by wrenagain on January 8th 2010 at 10:30am
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Before I moved to the west coast, I used to do that each winter.. it worked great. I'd fill three 1-gallon (4L) plastic jugs with water and put them outside to freeze, and then bring them in one at a time to cool the fridge.. at any given time there was 1 in the fridge and 2 more outside re-freezing or waiting to be used. During the coldest parts of winter, the fridge sometimes didn't cycle on at all.

posted by Green Geek on January 8th 2010 at 3:46pm
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my grandparents live up in canada. Whenever i visit them in the wintertime, i'm surprised at how much food/drinks I see outside on their porch. When I asked my grandma one year why there was so much outside, she said "colder out there than in here. save space, save electricity." true dat. hahaha.a

posted by purseho on January 9th 2010 at 11:14pm
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