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Refrigerator

The refrigerator has always seemed to me a waste of energy. It was using about 1 kilowatt hour a day but ofcourse the temperature has been variable in the house as spring turned in summer. In May it was rather cool and now it is much warmer. My thoughts where if only I could use cool outside air to cool the heating coils... and then how about adding a layer of insuation? Then since I added a vent to the outside I should have a continual flow of air through it to help cool the coils powered by a solar cell! Well here is my attempt and we will document the results.

I am making some kind of progress on the refrigerator. and yes I am confused since there seemed to be nothing I did that affected the power usage until I realized that the temperatuure in the fridge was getting lower. I took the thermostat apart... nearly lost everything in a desperate bid to understand and put it back together again... but as always I persisted and its functioning again. So what have I learned? One needs to tackle the thermostat first, understand it and then record the temperatures you want to keep. In the end result I am at least saving about .3 of a kwh a day from the normal 1 kwh a day.. but whether that is from the work I did or just changing the thermostat to function better I do not know.. I guess the part I haveto concentrate on is that I use less energy now.

On July 1, 2008 I installed a fan to draw the air through the venting system. It worked well but when recording the amount of electricity used I discovered that there was little change. This really perplexed me... until I noticed that the fridge was much colder than normal! Yes somehow the changes I had been doing did not affect the amount of time the compressor and fans where on but it did affect the temperature, making it a lot colder. I tried to adjust the thermostats down but there was no setting the allowed for normal temperatures in the fridge so I just shut it off and too my amazement the fridge stayed very cold for over 12 hours. So I need to add an external thermostat.
June 21, 2008 OK its back in use again and we are documenting the energy useage.
The insulation is complete
Anjali putiing the last piece of insulation in the back of the fridge. We covered everything in plastic.
Anjali started putting the insulation in.
June 21, 2008 Framing complete on one side
The start of the framing.
Here is the outlet for the hot air. I will get a dryer vent for it next week!
The air intake below the mud room with a screen over it.
The air intake through the mud room.
First hole in the wall.. had a few problems at first since the studs where in the wrong place so I just used a flexible pipe for the outlet.
I missed a number of intermediate pictures showing how I segregated off the unit so that the incoming air could only come from the pipe on the far right... and yes I'm using a lot of the handymans secret weapon...DUCK TAPE!!!
So I pulled out the tray and yes it is ugly!.... It got cleaned!
And what do we have here... looks like a perfect breeding ground for bacteria!!!
Here I am cleaning the colling unit... it gets covered in dust!
June 15, 2008. So I started by tipping the fridge on an angle ... doing a lot of cleaning and preparing the idea!