Thought for the day, if it's freezing out (1°F, feels like -13°F at the moment) how much money would you save by having your fridge sucking in nice cold air from outside? It seems a bit bizarre to have to pay to heat the air in the room then pay again to cool the air inside the fridge.
Cooling and heating
htoug on 2004-01-24T12:19:48
Don't forget that the fridge is heating the air in your room. It is a heat pump, that pumpsthe heat from inside the fridge to outside the fridge, ie. to inside your room.
If you put it outside all the energy that you use too cool the fridge would just go to heat the birds.
Re:Cooling and heating
jordan on 2004-01-24T20:50:22
Yes, but he's not saying that you should put the fridge outside, he's saying that the fridge should just suck air from outside (I would assume without attempting to refridgerate that air). So, heating the birds isn't really in the equation here, if I understand it correctly (although the poor birds, who have high body temperatures might really appreciate a little extra warming in this weather).
But, you are right in one sense, you would have to heat your house a little more to make up for the amount of heat the fridge currently adds to the heat inside.
outside temp adjustment
Strangely enough, I've actually thought about this quite a bit. I've been in computer rooms that have massive cooling systems and thought, "Why can't they use this heat to heat the building?" In Buffalo, this is no small potatoes.
Likewise, I've thought about the fact that we keep a few things cold (the fridge) while it is freezing outside. The other trick would be to make the air intake smart. You actually don't want your fridge to freeze, but just stay cold.
Here's another invention I can't find: a heat exchanger for the dryer vent. All that heat goes outside when all we really want to vent is the moisture and any gas fumes (from natural gas dryers). A heat exchanger could let the bad air go out, but pump the heat in.
geo-heat pump
ybiC on 2004-01-28T11:52:40
Not specifically about refrigeration, but we keep our chest freezer (fulla pizzas and microwave entres) in the unheated garage, so through the midwest winter it almost never runs.
And even less about refrigeration, you could pay muchmuch more upfront and less recurring to heat/cool your house by having a below-the-frost-line geo heat exchanger installed instead of AC+furnace.
cheers,
ybiC
