Just a thought
Every once in a while a light bulb threatens to turn on over my head.
Example.
It’s 1:53 in the morning and it’s pretty cold out, and I’m distracted by the sound of the refrigerator running.
For a couple minutes I kept looking back and forth between the wind blowing outside my windows to the left, and the fridge to the right.
Just seems sorta stupid the amount of energy being spent to keep things cold when it’s cold out. Sure, it’s not cold enough outside to do the trick yet. But it just seems to me that a fridge should have it’s back to an outside wall with insulated louvers behind it that open up when it’s cold to help it along. Then set the fridge in some kind of insulated shell so it’s more outwardly exposed while preventing bleed-through to the home.
I’ll bet you’d save a metric crapload of electricity between October and April/May. Any idea how much kwh a normal small apartment sized fridge uses? Multiply that by at least 10 in my building alone.
I’m no hippy but waste is waste.
Tags: environment
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:58 am
My corollary question is: Why do fridges continue to be designed with upright, front-opening doors that dump all the expensively-chilled air out into the expensively-heated room every time they are opened?
Paul
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:06 am
and on to my delicate expensively-heated tootsies!
Some day I’m going to need a house in the country with an extra little building for my “experiments”.