Would a Fridge Curtain Save Electricity, or Should You Just Unplug?

Drawers not doors would save more energy, but that calls for a radical redesign.

I make a block of ice overnight in winter on my fire escape, and put it in the fridge, where it can take days to melt.

Also, believe it or not, a full fridge uses less power than an empty one.

If you have a decent fridge, it will only run when the internal temperature rises too high. Unplugging it for part of the time is basically equivalent to running it on a lower setting.

The curtain is a good idea. Here's another one that acts on the same principle- when your fridge is empty, fill it with empty tupperware (with lids). Then less of the cold air will escape each time you open it.

Here is a much better way to maximize your energy savings -- use two chest freezers instead of an upright freezer. Rewire the thermostat on one to function as a refrigerator. Chest freezers when opened do not lose all their cold air. The insulation system is much more efficient. And they even cost much less for the amount of space. Their electrical drain is significantly less than that of a traditional refrigerator.
This gentleman used this idea to reduce the electrical needs of his solar house: http://mtbest.net/chest_fridge.html

I doubt a curtain would reduce the energy very much, unless you use the food in the door a lot more than the rest of the refrigerator.

If you want to reduce the energy use of your refrigerator a couple ways to do it are to raise the settings so it doesn't get as cold, usually food is kept colder than it needs to be.

Also if you have extra room put in closed containers with water in them (partially filled in the freezer). The specific heat capacity of water is much greater than air so it will help control temperature swings when you open the fridge.

Thirdly make sure that the door seals are tight and snug, when the door is closed. This is the mostly likely area for cold air to leak out.

"fill it with empty tupperware (with lids)":

Or better still, tupperware filled with water, since water retains its temperature better?

A better idea is to switch the bulb to an LED. Most of the energy spike from opening (at least a quick opening) is from lighting the inside of the fridge. We switched to an LED in our standard fridge and have save a lot.

The curtain will be relatively useless. If you stare at the open fridge for a long time it might have a minor benefit. But mainly the cold air fall out every time you open the door. But most of the energy is in the cold objects and fridge interior, not in the air inside.

Putting boxes with no holes on their bottoms in the fridge and placing your food in them would be helpful - sort of like a chest-style freezer. That would help the cold air stay put.

As someone who has built and overclocked custom gaming PCs since 1998, I have always wondered about the following:

Why are the fans and radiator fins exposed such that they easily get clogged with fur and crap, yet are very un-user friendly to clean?

Here's an idea: sealed and ducted fans/radiators, with easy access intake ports with lint filter. So the air intake would be at mid height (off the floor where all the crap is), maybe on the side, so the user can easily see and remove/clean the lint filter as needed. Can you imagine how much energy would be saved? Right now almost nobody ever cleans out their fridge radiator/fan, EVER!

Moving a fridge outside seems dubious to me. Instead of opening the door to the refrigerator every time you want to put milk in your coffee, you're opening the door to your house, letting more cold air in than the fridge lets out. You may save money on the fridge, but you'll certainly make up for it in increased energy heating your house.

How about this idea. Why we put the condenser coil of the refrigerator out side. It should gave significant saving in energy as in the cold month the efficiency of the heat pomp will significantly improve.
The coil should be on the north side of building or in the shade.

The curtain sounds like a good idea.
The empty tupperwares would work too, but are less practical.
The tupperwares full of water is just a silly idea, it makes no difference what`s inside the tupperwares, their purpose is just to avoid that the cold air inside the fridge get replaced by warm air.

How about just removing the light bulb in the fridge, that shouls save some extra energy.

There should be some way to intelligently monitor and transfer heat between the refrigerator interior and the outdoors in the winter.

A hybrid refrigerator of sorts.

Something similar to the technology used for venting modern highly insulated homes that would transfer cold filtered air with the right humidity in the winter and vent out the excess heat from the compressor in the summer.

Another idea would be a co-generation unit for both heat and electricity where the electricity powers the fridge and potentially other stuff.

Similar to the WhisperGen microCHP.

http://www.whispergen.com/main/achomesspecs_info/

Fran,

You're totally right. It was actually such a silly idea I thought it was simply tongue in cheek. But anyone serious about it should read your post and realize how utterly dopey the idea is.

But if fridge manufacturers went along with my ducted airflow idea, it would be not that difficult to route the intake and exhaust such that in the winter, you take in outside cold air and exhaust warm air into the house. The compressor would run much less and you'd actually be able to use that waste heat; almost a ghetto co-gen setup. In the summer, just use outside air and vent to outside. No need to pump more heat into the house.

As for the curtain, sorry, its silly. As already said, just keep your fridge full, even if it is with sealed empty containers.

Why is the idea of a curtain dopey? Commercial freezers often have strips of heavy plastic inside the doors to help contain the cold air. A seperate curtain for each shelf as suggested in the article makes a certain amount of sense to anyone who has worked in the food service industry. Ditto with strips of plastic (so only a small amount of cold air is lost when the strips are pushed aside in the small spot needed to reach food containers). One big curtain for the whole front probably wouldn't work so well, though.

It's just a matter of thinking the thing through from more perspectives than the one that comes naturally to you.

I'm a researcher into human behaviour and energy using products such as fridges.

The curtain idea is a good one, if the fridge is opened a lot to simply look inside, this is often done by families with young children. But it must be remembered that around 80% of the energy loss of a fridge is through the walls due to poor insulation.

Improving the insulation or placing the fridge in a colder place away from any cookers or heat sources would give you a much greater saving at the moment.

The ad-hoc shower curtain is dopey, that is all. In fact, the idea of segmented compartments rather than shelves, each one with a thin see-through bottom hinged door is a very good one.

My freezer in my unheated cottage is not keeping contents fully frozen, should I plug it in only on the week ends I am there?