Freezer to Refrigerator Conversion
 

I have an 80's model hotpoint side by side refrig/freezer. It seemed this thing would constantly run, even in the colder months. This winter I froze water in milk jugs and placed them on the top shelf to help it not run so much. After doing some research on solar and wind power, I wouldnt be able to afford enough solar panels and wind turbine combo to satisfy all my electrical needs. However, my goal, hopefully, is to produce enough energy to run some key appliances. The big key is controlling energy uses and a refrigerator is an energy hog. I didnt want to buy a newer model freezer that would run in the 100's of dollars but opted with this ideal instead

http://goldismoney.info/forums/showt...erator+freezer

I was able to pick up a small chest freezer for $50 at a garage sale and a temperature controller on fleabay.

So far, I am really impressed by the system. At the start the temp was 65 and got down to 38 in less than 5 minutes. The only issue is arranging the items I had in the origianal refrig to the refrig/freezer. I might get some milk crates to make use of the vertical space by stacking on top of each other.

Re: Freezer to Refrigerator Conversion
 

A regular normal house sized refrigerator uses darned few electrons.
I have pretty recent model 17 cubic foot I think it is a Frigidaire... will check tonight and update if my brand name is in error.
Anyway, the data plate claims it uses a grand total of 388 kilowatt hours per YEAR, which argues out to a couple pennies over ONE kilowatt hour per day.
That AND the small chest freezer run on solar power with no problem at latitude 59 degrees North.

Re: Freezer to Refrigerator Conversion
 

I believe this is commonly done by home brew enthusiasts to keep their kegs at prime drinking and lagering temperatures.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/

Re: Freezer to Refrigerator Conversion
 

I've thought of going to an auction and buying an ice cream chest freezer with a glass top. Convert it to a refrig. And with the glass top it would cut down on the "open the door and look" thing near everybody does.

Re: Freezer to Refrigerator Conversion
 

I know of this guy that is supposed to be doing an experiment right now with a small chest freezer to fridge conversion.....since I lent him an external thermostat and a Kil-A-Watt meter to record power consumption.

HOPEFULLY, he will weigh in with some empirical data before long......

Re: Freezer to Refrigerator Conversion
 

I am using an analog thermostat to keep a refrigerator at 55 degrees F for wine aging. I put the thermostat probe in the wine refrigerator, plug frig. power plug into the thermostat, and then plug the thermostat into the wall socket. The refrigerator is set to the coldest setting, but the external thermostat regulates the power to the refrigerator when it is needed.I think one of these could also be used to keep a freezer at 40 degrees.

Here is my thermostat.

http://i41.tinypic.com/w6xz6r.png

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/produ...px?ProdID=4230

Digital

http://i42.tinypic.com/2gv4m12.jpg

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/produ...px?ProdID=4100

Re: Freezer to Refrigerator Conversion
 

If you can do basic wiring - just put a refrigerator stat in place of the freezer stat. Cost about nothing, as fridges are dumped everywhere. Takes maybe half an hour to do.

how to convert a chest freezer to a fridge
 

I completed conversion of a <a href="http://johnlvs2run.wordpress.com/">chest freezer to a fridge</a> a few days ago.
The Whirlpool chest fridge runs only 8 minutes and is then off for 87 minutes before running again.
It keeps an average temperature of 36.5 degrees (33 to 40), and uses less than 6 watts an hour ($.60 a month).

The Frigidaire 18.6 cubic foot refrigerator used ~100 watts an hour.
It was annoying to feel the cold air pouring out every time the door was opened.

The Frigidaire chest freezer uses ~22 watts an hour ($1.86 a month). Together this is less than 30 percent of the previous use.

Re: how to convert a chest freezer to a fridge
 

I think your math is off by a bit.


My whole house uses about 900-1000 kwh a month, and it is a big house.

You sure that is not 538kwh per YEAR???

how to convert a chest freezer to a fridge
 

Those were the watt hours per day.

This change should reduce total kwh from 145 to less than 98 a month, for a 1381 sf house.

I use only wood for heating the house.