I thought so too for a long time. You need to have a fridge for summer. In winter we can agree that storing things outside would work if you are willing to monitor outside temperature and move all your stuff to the fridge if need be. That happens when it gets to warm obviously and also when it gets so cold your stuff freezes. Some things don’t freeze well, like fresh produce, so you move some things to the fridge others not. Instead you move your things from the freezer outside and back when the temperature dips too low. Some times this will happen two to four times a day, sometimes at night. So you get up to swap stuff out.
Okay that sucks for so little energy but lets keep going. You are an electrical engineer and decide to put the fridge to the outside wall of your house and drill a hole through both to enable your automated duct fan system to ventilate the air from the outside in and switch the fridge on and off just if extra cooling is required. But now the moisture from outside, insulation, critters are an issue. Also you want your fridge on another wall. Also the temperature for your freezer needs to be managed separately so you need a second hole and fan.
Let’s increase efficiency and use the fan and electronics giving off heat to heat the space around the fridge.
Wow that could be greatly increased if the insulation was good enough to use a maximally efficient heat pump instead. Let’s forget about the holes and pipes, those are expensive and inconvenient anyways. Oops, you just invented a fridge :)
What a trip! I like the idea of the two sided fridge in the outer wall.
I forgot to mention in my post, that I am actually using the fridge outside under a small roof. It’s pretty cool there most of the year. Just need to take care in the hot summer weeks.
I thought so too for a long time. You need to have a fridge for summer. In winter we can agree that storing things outside would work if you are willing to monitor outside temperature and move all your stuff to the fridge if need be. That happens when it gets to warm obviously and also when it gets so cold your stuff freezes. Some things don’t freeze well, like fresh produce, so you move some things to the fridge others not. Instead you move your things from the freezer outside and back when the temperature dips too low. Some times this will happen two to four times a day, sometimes at night. So you get up to swap stuff out.
Okay that sucks for so little energy but lets keep going. You are an electrical engineer and decide to put the fridge to the outside wall of your house and drill a hole through both to enable your automated duct fan system to ventilate the air from the outside in and switch the fridge on and off just if extra cooling is required. But now the moisture from outside, insulation, critters are an issue. Also you want your fridge on another wall. Also the temperature for your freezer needs to be managed separately so you need a second hole and fan.
Let’s increase efficiency and use the fan and electronics giving off heat to heat the space around the fridge.
Wow that could be greatly increased if the insulation was good enough to use a maximally efficient heat pump instead. Let’s forget about the holes and pipes, those are expensive and inconvenient anyways. Oops, you just invented a fridge :)
What a trip! I like the idea of the two sided fridge in the outer wall.
I forgot to mention in my post, that I am actually using the fridge outside under a small roof. It’s pretty cool there most of the year. Just need to take care in the hot summer weeks.