Make Your Ref Far More Efficient

Been hav­ing prob­lems with my ref lately. I had two buck­ets of really deli­cious Selecta Gold Label Ice Cream (Berry Straw­berry and Choco Truf­fles! Yummy!) melt on me. We had melted choco­late shake with truf­fles for two days, which is not bad, but it would have been bet­ter if the ref was work­ing correctly.

Some­times, a sim­ple defrost would do for energy effi­ciency. But some­times it doesn’t. Here’s a New York Times arti­cle talk­ing about how our refrig­er­a­tors could become more efficient.

By C. CLAIBORNE RAY
http://​www​.nytimes​.com/​2​0​0​9​/​0​5​/​1​9​/​s​c​i​e​n​c​e​/​1​9​q​n​a​.​h​t​m​l​?​_​r=1
Pub­lished: May 18, 2009

Q. Do refrig­er­a­tors use more energy when filled with food?

Not once the food gets cold. Gov­ern­ment and com­mer­cial experts agree that the cool­ing sec­tion should be kept full, with enough room for some cool air to cir­cu­late for even cool­ing, and that the freezer com­part­ment should be tightly packed, so the frozen foods can keep one another cold.

If there is not enough food to fill the freezer, many sug­gest putting in more ice trays or some con­tain­ers of water. Frozen food in a fully packed freezer will sur­vive a power fail­ure for quite a while if the door is kept shut. Some extra water con­tain­ers in the cool­ing sec­tion will also min­i­mize the amount of inrush­ing warm air that has to be cooled when the door opens and shuts.

There are other ways to keep your refrigerator’s con­denser from work­ing over­time. It is per­mis­si­ble to let hot food cool some­what before refrig­er­at­ing it, as long as the cool­ing period is not long enough to per­mit bac­te­r­ial growth. Never use warm or hot water to make ice cubes. Cover moist food, so the refrig­er­a­tor does not waste energy evap­o­rat­ing the moisture.

Check for the rec­om­mended tem­per­a­tures, 37 to 40 degrees Fahren­heit in the cool­ing sec­tion and under 5 degrees Fahren­heit in the freezer com­part­ment. Clean the con­denser coils behind the refrig­er­a­tor the way the man­ual says, and make sure there is enough room behind and above them for the warm air to escape. Make sure the door seals are tight; test them to see if they hold onto a dol­lar bill when you tug it.

And most impor­tant, keep door open­ing to a min­i­mum. Replace sev­eral items at a time rather than mak­ing sep­a­rate trips.