Propane Fridges? What do you think?

[Chas]

Thanks Terracore. Never realized there were so many rebates available.

[Mimosa]

We bought our Dometic fridge and freezer 15 years ago .
It is 18.2 cubic ft all in all .Large freezer on top and quite large fridge space on the bottom.Separate compartments - it uses less than 10 gallons propane every 6 weeks .
We put extra foam covering of 6 inches thick on all sides except the back where the coils are.
The waste heat goes into a drying box and also a preheater for hot water instead of turning on the Paloma which we keep off till needed .
We do have solar hot water panels on the roof which on sunny days is quite enough but on the weeks of constant clouds and rain we do utilize the Paloma - the Paloma ( A PH5 ) uses 10 gallons every 16 months on average .
We have a good PV system so being off grid as we are we find this way of living perfect for our family needs .
There are 4 of us in the home most of the time.
We also have a small chest freezer from Home Depot that we run one hour a day so all is kept frozen when we butcher our protein or harvest the extra veg from the gardens .
It works for us and No HELL - CO .

Mrs . Mimosa

[dmbwest]

Dear Mrs. Mimosa,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXNUNQo86ho

aloha,
pog

[ericlp]

OK, the list... I know everyone here is waiting for it!

1) Place fridge on wall that the sun doesn't hit...
2) Clean Coils every 6-12 months. Dirty coils longer the fridge has to run wasting $
3) Never keep the fridge Empty. Keep water jugs 1 gallon plastic ones are what I use.
4) Replace 60 Watt Bulb with LED bulb. A small 5 watt led bulb is what I use.
5) Don't block the fans (airflow) top of the freezer. Keep it clear.
6) Let hot foods cool down before throwing it into the fridge.
7) cover the liquid items in the fridge. Items not covered creates excess moisture.
8) Keep the door CLOSED! Figure out what you need to get before opening the door.
9) Check the broken worn seals, clean where the seal makes contact to frame.

Well, I could go into a paragraph or so on each tip, but you get the point of it.

TWO other things you could do, the super max efficiency.

1) install a timer... Your fridge should be able to keep your food safely cool for 5+ hours in the night time when you sleep. Not like you'll be up opening the door. Consider installing a timer from sleeping hours. 11AM-6AM to cut the power.

This is an added benefit if you are on solar. Fridge won't have to run very much on batteries. Also, the fridge can't defrost at those hours, so it forces to defrost in the daytime when hopefully the sun is out.

2) Do at your own risk... Cut the power to the defrost circuit. Manual defrost might be a pain, but it will save you money be doing it yourself.

If on solar, you might consider yanking the defrost timer out and installing a switch, so you can force the fridge to defrost when the sun is out and not wearing down batteries.

Have fun!

[kalakoa]

Keep water jugs 1 gallon plastic ones are what I use.

Smaller ballast (eg, beer) leaves more room to shuffle things around.

consider yanking the defrost timer out and installing a switch

Use a mechanical spring-wound timer, so you don't (can't!) forget to turn it off.

[MarkP]

Keeping the refrigerator full with water bottles does not help with efficiency. Neither does turning the refrigerator off at night or otherwise putting it on a timer. If the refrigerator is X degrees inside and the room is Y degrees outside and the refrigerator has Z insulation and thermal efficiency then that is what determines energy use. Adding water ballast will cost you energy to cool it down but afterwards will make no difference otherwise. Turning the reefer off overnight will only save you energy by letting your stuff get warm. If you are OK with that then just turn the controls to a warmer setting and save energy all day long. As a bonus you will likely get exercise running back and forth to the toilet.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Keeping the refrigerator full with water bottles does not help with efficiency.

It does however help if the fridge is less than full.
When you open the door to a partially empty fridge, the empty space is displaced with warm air. If you have water bottles in the fridge (empty or full) that space remains cold.

[MarkP]

It may help in that there is less warm air that gets in but air is not very dense and doesn't take much to cool. The difference of a gallon or two less air to cool would not be a deal breaker. My point is that it is not the magic bullet it is made out to be. I agree about the empty jugs. Having cold water in them is what's neither here nor there.

The exchange of chilled air for ambient room air every time you open the door does seem like something worth preventing. What about hanging vinyl curtains in front of each shelf? That would slow down the exchange of air.

[ericlp]

I find if you do use liquid jugs of water or beer or soda... The temp is more even and regulated than just a filled void of empty air containers, since the residual cold gets stored in the water and transfers much more slowly than just air. But I drink the cool water, so, it's a bonus for me I guess!

Yes, it's not a silver bullet, I'm thinking this only works for people that open up the fridge more than 10 times a day. If you don't open the fridge a lot then, it's not gonna make much of a difference. Different circumstances for different users I guess.

[terracore]

In the example that ericlp posted, keeping your fridge more full using jugs or beer will slow the heat loss compared to empty space when used on a timer. Water being denser than air will lose its heat more slowly so the fridge has less work to do when the timer kicks the unit on. Of course, the fridge will consume as much energy to cool the water the second time as it did the first after the timer kicks the unit back on.

When no timer is used, the energy savings is probably negligible unless you have a teenager. Teenagers will open the refrigerator door several times a day and leave it wide open while they stare into it for minutes at a time, hoping that a magic fairy or leprechaun has put something fantastic that wasn't there the last time they checked just a few minutes ago. Yet oddly, they will never move stuff around to see if there is a precious treat behind the brussel sprouts.

As far as the timer goes, my experience after Iselle is that with my refrigerator at least, there is no energy savings from powering down the fridge at night. When we turned our generator on in the morning the fridge basically never turned off the entire day as it struggled to bring the temp back down. But the timer theory is sound if you only have energy produced during the daytime whether its from solar or a generator- you cool when you can. It might not save energy but it might save wear and tear on your batteries if you go that route.

One thing that helped was we put a large frozen ham (-5 degrees from our chest freezer) into the refrigerator at night. It kept the inside much cooler and the refrigerator played less catch-up when we turned the generator on. And we put the barely-yet-still-frozen ham back into the freezer in the morning. Rinse and repeat.