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In the winter, when it's quite cold out, I often wonder why I'm paying to make cold air when there is free cold air available outside. What about a fridge that
by dplgk 4y ago
In the winter, when it's quite cold out, I often wonder why I'm paying to make cold air when there is free cold air available outside. What about a fridge that takes in air from outdoors?
- Toutouxc 4y agoIf you're willing to put a hole in your wall, preferably somewhere convenient, where you can also place the fridge, then yes, that could be useful.
- MandieD 4y agoI think of the shaded parts back porch as a giant walk-in (out?) fridge most of the winter, and have considered getting someone’s discarded chest freezer mostly to reduce the likelihood of critters and to moderate the effects of a slight overnight freeze.
- verisimilitude 4y agoAgreed! We need an electrified version of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_cooler_(cabinet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_cooler_(cabinet)
- airbreather 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolgardie_safe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolgardie_safe
- Tade0 4y agoI see it as a fairly energy-efficient way to get additional warmth - after all it's a heat pump. That being said my mother keeps all the Christmas food on the balcony because it solves both the cooling and storage space problems.
- LorenPechtel 4y agoYeah, I really wish there was more focus on not wasting energy. Off the top of my head: We have a normal furnace/air conditioner combo (I live in a climate where summer air conditioning is essential), it has no concept of outside air temperature. I really would like a system where it doesn't have the concept of being set to cool/off/heat, but rather a concept of ideal temperature/heat-to/cool-to. Before running the high energy systems it looks at the outside air temp to see if it would be more efficient to turn on a fan to bring in outside air. It also will use that fan to adjust the temperature towards ideal but will not use the high energy systems to do so. The HVAC should also be able to communicate with the refrigerator. If heat is desired in the house the refrigerator uses coils inside the house to dispose of it's waste heat. If heat is not desired it uses outside coils.
- Kirby64 4y agoGenerally speaking you want conditioned cooled air, not just cooled air. A huge part of an AC system (and, a fridge is basically a small AC unit) is dehumidifying as well. Functionally, you'd now need to add a de-humidification circuit to the system if you used outside air, since you don't have any humidity control.