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Converting a Chest Freezer to a Fridge [pdf]
- andrewwhartion 10y agoAbstract: "This article describes a household refrigerator that requires about 0.1 kWh per day to operate. The refrigerator offers excellent food-preserving performance, because temperature fluctuations in its interior are naturally minimized during everyday use. This fridge is 10 to 20 times more energy efficient than typical household fridges on the market today. It seems that the biggest obstacles in increasing the energy efficiency and food- preserving performance of household refrigerators are strange human habits and lack of understanding of Nature, not technology or cost."
- jasonlingx 10y agoAn easier way could be to take a fridge and lay it horizontally.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoThe compressor has a coil with oil in it. The oil must settle in the right places or the thing could stop functioning. It can ruin a compressor to store the unit in the wrong orientation.
- byuu 10y agoYep. There's lots of scary warnings when buying even mini fridges that you can't operate it for at least 24 hours if the unit was rested on its side during transport to you.
- URSpider94 10y agoAlso, chest freezers are much, much cheaper than refrigerators. The last time I bought one, I paid around $300 for one that was quite large, vs. twice that or more for a typical upright refrigerator. Partly, I expect that's because they are so much less complicated, and partly it's because the demand is much lower.
- eru 10y agoShouldn't bigger demand lead to efficiencies of scale, and thus lower price---at least for manufactured goods like fridges?
- forgottenpass 10y agoConsumer kitchen refrigerators have a higher BOM cost. They have two separate regulated champers, auto-defrost for the freezer compartment (chest freezers typically don't), shelving, ice makers, external ice/water dispensers, ice crushers, and cosmetic features. And the cosmetic features for a kitchen, rather than the work-a-day ugliness of chest freezers probably means a larger profit margin too.
- joezydeco 10y ago"Vertical doors in refrigeration devices are inherently inefficient. As soon as we open a vertical fridge door – the cold air escapes, simply because it is heavier than the warmer air in the room." Okay, so the author proposes that the thermal losses from the cold air being replaced with ambient air make up for the hundreds of extra kWh/year consumed by a vertical fridge. While chest freezers typically have better thermal insulation and larger evaporators than fridges... So shouldn't we be comparing a chest fridge to a vertical fridge with a comparable insulation system and condenser/evaporator capacity before declaring that lower air losses are the reason chest fridges work better?
- vanderZwan 10y ago> In 2004 I became really curious just how efficient a “chest fridge” can be. Pretty sure you couldn't easily get a chest fridge back then. I know, I looked for one a few years later.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cptskippy 10y agoWhat constitutes a chest fridge to you? A Google image search on the term yields exactly what I expected and those have been around as long as I can remember (30+ years).
- vanderZwan 10y agoSomething I can buy in a store or have delivered to my house and isn't an order of magnitude more expensive because it's "design"
- cptskippy 10y agoSo you're saying that "design" chest fridges are a new occurrence? I'm thoroughly confused as to what you're trying to say. Chest fridges are not new and have been around for decades. If by "design" you mean designer, then ok maybe designer chest fridges are a new thing. I wouldn't know because I've never actually seen one. Most people keep chest fridges in their basement or garage and wouldn't care if it's designer or not.
- 6502nerdface 10y agoLots of homebrew supply shops sell affordable, hobbyist thermostats to put between your chest freezer and the electrical outlet, or, with more work, to replace the freezer's built-in thermostat, in either case converting the freezer into a fridge. Good for lagering or serving small (~5 gal) kegs.
- keenerd 10y agoUsually those are shops don't sell what I'd consider affordable thermostats. The really affordable ones are meant for aquariums and are easy to pick up on ebay.
- andrewwhartion 10y agoAt around $20, something like an STC-1000 digital thermostat I'd consider pretty affordable for this type of application.
- keenerd 10y agoThat would be the exact model I am talking about.
- aaron695 10y agoAs someone who has done it. TL;DR; How Have zero knowledge about anything. Buy part on eBay. Spend 5 mins double checking what to do. Spend 30 seconds replacing part. Because this is done by a lot of homebrewers, easy and lots of info out there. TL;DR; Why, if not for homebrew. Because a fridge will lose a lot of air when opening. 600 liters of air weights 600 grams. This ~ needs to be re-chilled on each opening.
- brian-armstrong 10y agoThe article mentions that condensation collects on the bottom and has to be sponged out. It seems like what's missing is a system to deal with condensation.
- singingfish 10y agoYeah I had a chest freezer fridge for a while. The condensation was a real pain.
- eru 10y agoThough, if you only have to deal with this every 2-3 months, like the article says, it might not be too much of a hassle.
- dpark 10y agoI don't believe the claim unless the author lives somewhere with near-zero humidity all the time. People use these frequently for homebrew ("keezer" a la "kegerator"). The condensation is a frequent complaint. If you leave the walls of your fridge wet for months at a time, they will mold. It's cold, but not so cold that no molds can grow. And sponging out a chest freezer full of food is a giant pain in the ass because of, you know, all the food.
- Animats 10y agoOr there's this article about how to change the temperature range of a chest freezer with one simple screw adjustment.[1] Or this off the shelf external mechanical thermostat.[2] Designing your own analog electronic thermostat is not really necessary. [1] http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=249612 http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=249612 [2] https://www.amazon.com/Johnson-Controls-A19AAT-2C-Temperature-Controller/dp/B0002EAL58#customerReviews https://www.amazon.com/Johnson-Controls-A19AAT-2C-Temperatur...
- Jaruzel 10y agoNon-PDF Google Cache Copy (for people like me, who don't like clicking on unknown PDFs): http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_wPrLjU4OpEJ:www.mtbest.net/chest_fridge.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_wPrLjU... Missing the diagrams of the circuits but totally readable.
- Retric 10y agoJust make sure to get a freezer with a drain plug. They are normally used for defrosting. "Some GE and HP chest freezers have a convenient drain at the front with hose adaptor. Check Owner's Manual for specific model information. Download a copy of the Owner's Manual." http://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-support-search-content?contentId=19299 http://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-support-searc...
- amelius 10y agoWhy doesn't anybody sell this in shops?
- rubidium 10y agoMy goodness people. 12 hours of discussion and people are arguing about if it's actually more efficient or the best thermostat to use. The reason no one wants a "chest freezer" style fridge (which the author of the article advocates) is because it's a pain the back to get stuff in and out, not to mention organizing your food. Yes, this is great for home-brewing. But nobody should kid themselves that regular people would want this to replace their "normal" upright fridges.
- Wile_E_Quixote 10y agoI'm not sure the pain-in-the-back argument is necessarily true. Even for many upright refrigerators, you must still bend over or crouch to get things from lower shelves and drawers. I've never felt inconvenienced removing things from my chest freezer. Also, my chest freezer has some sliding racks that make it great for organizing its contents. It seems possible that the pain-in-the-back argument is great for marketing, because it sounds like there could be some truth to it. I would argue that a person that has back trouble would likely only be able to use the chest level shelves in fridges, but they could just as easily use the top level racks in a chest freezer. My guess for why traditional upright fridges could be seen as more convenient is because they take up less floor space for the amount of volume they provide. Also, upright fridges would be easier for small/short children to access. If floor space is less of a concern, and there is no need for small children to access the fridge, a chest-freezer-style fridge sounds like a brilliant idea. Next time I need a new fridge, I will seriously consider this as an option. Perhaps by then some contrarian manufacturers will realize how much sense this makes and I won't even need to convert a freezer myself.
- dpark 10y agoIt's not about "back trouble". Digging through a chest freezer regularly is a pain even if your back is in great shape. Most of the stuff people use frequently ends up on the top shelves or in the doors of fridges. Lots of fridges have really deep door shelves to maximize this utility. Similarly, nicer fridge/freezer combos have mostly moved the freezer to the bottom to increase the convenience of the fridge. Most fridges also have quite a few shelves so that you can get out the thing you want without moving everything. In a chest freezer, the baskets don't hold most of the food. Most of it is stacked on the bottom. So to get the thing you want, you inevitably have to move other things off of it. Refrigerators minimize this hassle. Plus the condensation is gross and extremely inconvenient to clean when the fridge is full. I can't imagine leaving the walls of my fridge wet for 2-3 months at a time. You can address that with a chest fridge that operates like a normal fridge (cooling and therefore dehumidifying the air directly), but I bet you lose most of the efficiency gains as soon as you do.
- rrauenza 10y agoI'm struggling to find the reason for the battery backup / UPS. It has to be charged occasionally by the system, so doesn't make it's consumption zero standby... Why not drive the circuit directly from the A/C via a DC transformer? Is it to keep the memory of the last cycle to not over cycle the compressor?
- monkeycantype 10y agoHang on, how is it we've spent hours arguing over thermostats, and no one has mentioned this is the work of dr tom chalko inventor of the cancer curing bioresonant t-shirt: https://bioresonant.com/tshirts.html https://bioresonant.com/tshirts.html as seen in the authors head shot at the end of the pdf. that's no mere dead head tie dye you're seeing folks