The fridge has stable temperature, the outside has not.
/endofstory
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
11 points (66.7% liked)
ShowerThoughts
3960 readers
1 users here now
Sometimes we have those little epiphanies in the shower.. sometimes they come from other places. This is a home for those epiphanies.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
How about the fridge outside? /startofnewstory
I thought so too for a long time. You need to have a fridge for summer. In winter we can agree that storing things outside would work if you are willing to monitor outside temperature and move all your stuff to the fridge if need be. That happens when it gets to warm obviously and also when it gets so cold your stuff freezes. Some things don't freeze well, like fresh produce, so you move some things to the fridge others not. Instead you move your things from the freezer outside and back when the temperature dips too low. Some times this will happen two to four times a day, sometimes at night. So you get up to swap stuff out.
Okay that sucks for so little energy but lets keep going. You are an electrical engineer and decide to put the fridge to the outside wall of your house and drill a hole through both to enable your automated duct fan system to ventilate the air from the outside in and switch the fridge on and off just if extra cooling is required. But now the moisture from outside, insulation, critters are an issue. Also you want your fridge on another wall. Also the temperature for your freezer needs to be managed separately so you need a second hole and fan.
Let's increase efficiency and use the fan and electronics giving off heat to heat the space around the fridge.
Wow that could be greatly increased if the insulation was good enough to use a maximally efficient heat pump instead. Let's forget about the holes and pipes, those are expensive and inconvenient anyways. Oops, you just invented a fridge :)
What a trip! I like the idea of the two sided fridge in the outer wall.
I forgot to mention in my post, that I am actually using the fridge outside under a small roof. It's pretty cool there most of the year. Just need to take care in the hot summer weeks.
I had these saved on my phone for some reason. I guess it was for you.
We usually don't have that much snow around here, but for the few days each year that might be a valid ... solution?
We don't have any snow at all😞
Whatever has happened to my deli meats, and why are there so many bears in my backyard?
You are living in the wrong outside. Maybe a small defense turret will do. /s
Tell the weather to stick to the narrow temperature ranges the fridge keeps and we can think about it.
I missed to mention to put the fridge outside of course. I actually do it for most of the year under a small roof where it is pretty cool, except for the very hot summer weeks. Then the fridge must do its heavy lpad. Or you bring it inside. Depends on the climate zone. Here it is moderate.
Go do a feasibility study and then you'll understand why we don't bother doing anything about this small amount of heat.
Hint: my outdoor freezer users the same energy as my indoor freezer, year round.
Fact? Is it the same model and type? Does it also run the same lengths? I would think the outside fridge would have longer standby phases (not using power) than the inside fridge. I don't do feasibility studies, I just take long showers.
Refrigerators tend to be surprisingly efficient. The cold substance inside them helps keep them cool, we've learned a lot of little tricks to help people keep the doors closed (before ice makers people basically left the freezer open while scooping ice into stuff), and we've just gotten better at design and insulation.
Paradoxically, they can sometimes work less efficiently in the cold. Not because of how refrigeration works, but because of how motors work. The oil in the compressor can get thicker, and the motor has to push harder to work.
That's why some advertise as "garage ready". An efficient compressor running gently for longer can use less energy than an inefficient one running for a short time, and being too cold can give you an inefficient compressor that runs for too long.
Then the compressor locks up, stops cooling entirely while churning power grinding at nothing while your food coasts up to the ambient temperature of the environment and a dead overheating compressor.
Interesting.
I will look out for the garage ready label, have never read or seen that before.
I'd assume that the outside freezer uses more energy in the summer, as it gets hotter outside than inside the house. So over the year it middles out.
In the winter I often cool down my cooked food outside before putting it in the fridge. But for long term storage you have to have a careful look at the weather forecast, as it could be -10° during a clear night but +10° the next day. In the summer I put my cooking pots in a water bath to cool them down quickly before putting them in the fridge.
Fridge is a heat pump and if ambient temps around it are low, it doesn't use that much energy. I have my fridge in a space that isn't generally heated unless necessary.
And any energy that goes into the fridge, goes into heating your home. So, reducing your winter heating bill.
Highway to the Danger zone (food safety)
I kind of forgot to point out that I am actually storing the food outside BUT inside the fridge. Under a roof where it is pretty cool most of the year.
I think you invented a root celler that uses electricity to heat the outside.
Kind of... Maybe... I never did the math or monitor consumption. The cooling cycles of the compressor are much shorter, that I can tell for sure.
Dunno about you but where I live there are raccoons and they have already tried to make themselves at home on my balcony several times.
The only trash bins they have never figured out how to open are containers they can't tip over and can't physically reach the latch.
I saw a comment from a park ranger that the reason they don't make trash bins bear-proof is that there is considerable overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest human. There is considerably more overlap between the smartest raccoon and the dumbest human.
If I store food outside, it will be stolen by raccoons, especially in winter when food is scarce.
No raccoons are cutting off human penii to study later.
In winter is too cold to be a fridge. It's more like a freezer or super cold freezer depends on the part of the winter.
I do often put beverages outside in the winter to save fridge space but you need to bring them inside at night or they would freeze
It's quite likely things will pee on the outdoor fridge. It's slightly less likely they'll pee on the indoor one.
Challenge accepted!
I do actually have a fridge outside under a roof in the first floor. Its like a closed balcony. Never had any stains, but small animals could potentially do so...
well at least it's an additional source of heat for the home ^^ but it's a valid thought, i had the same.
the only pb with the outside cold is that it's not stable enough for food storage if it constantly goes above and below freezing
I was thinking: Why not put the fridge outside. It needs less power in the cold. And it is still standing outside ever since. But I have also a smaller japanese compressor fridge in the Kirchen for the important daily stuff.
if you have a place that's protected from the weather, it's probably a good idea, although i'm not sure how well it handles having an inner temperature that's higher than the outside
You mean lower than outside? If it is freezing outside the fridge but the food inside needs just fridge temperatures?
Higher inside the fridge than outside it. How do you plan on keeping your liquids liquid if it's -10° outside?
Well, kinda. Depends a lot on where you live. My soydrink and egss would freeze fast if I put them outside at -40°C. And spoil when it suddenly gets warmer to like +1°C.. It would take monitoring and I would need to build a bird/vermin proof case/box, but I have thought about that in the past and it is something I have used in my advantage when I have cleaned and thawed my freezer.
I do have cellar which I often use as an extended fridge tho, I just need to monitor the warmth. (Summer it can get as warm as +8°C, winter it can go as low as -1°C.) And at my family's cottage we do have an old ground fridge. It's like a cement "box" that has lots of ground and plants growing on top/around of it.
Wait. Is the outside fridge the ground fridge? It always was. For thousands of years when they didn't have electricity. In the very old country homes and on farmers' premises they still use it today. It is a small cellar below a slope or a small hill. Here some call it Kartoffel Keller.
Yes, it's in a small hill! Or a hill that was manually made on top of the concrete structure.
We skipped winter this year in my state. Felt like late spring/early summer for all but maybe 2 cumulative weeks. Would not have gone well if I tried cooling anything outside.
It’s also idiotic how the heat from a regenerator is managed. That excess heat pulled from the food is useful in the winter, but why does it need to be dumped indoors in the summer. Would be so much nicer if there was a way to just move the heat entirely outside the house.
Depends. I used to keep beer in an enclosed but unheated room in my last couple apartments, but that's not an option any more. But here in Ohio the temperature from December through March might be 50°F, or it might be 0°F day to day. It's really only viable when temperature is a preference on a food/drink, not when you are trying to prevent it from spoiling
It was colder outside than in my freezer.
We occasionally will put foods out in a screened in area, like leftovers or takeout, that would take up too much room in the fridge when it’s cold out like that. Free fridge, man! Drinks, too.
I've been off-grid (off-grid light - power and shower at the neighbours) for 4 months now with a tiny solar system and no running water - now with mains power I notice how much energy I just spend casually - lights left on, stuff on standby, more ambitious projects because machines are available, mindless entertainment running in background. Currently reluctantly thinking about buying a fridge, because my cupboard will get too warm in some weeks. Or build an evaporation fridge. It were a rough few months, especially during the winter storms. On the other hand, enjoying (really enjoying) the limited amount of 30 mins of music at night and getting water from the source listening to the songbirds have been great improvements of my life quality and I hope to carry on with being slow and use resources with awareness. So yes, not just the fridge, but so many gadgets are just wasteful because we consider our wall plug electric energy an unlimited resource, which it is not.
You are way way beyond my initial shower thought. I was offgrid for four years, but only 7-9 months a year (the warmer) and I was living in a very sunny climate where solar would provide me with electricity for the most important things. It was beautiful. But I must admit I am glad to be "home" again, since I have family now.
We invented refrigeration over 3000 years ago, do you really think we've just been doing it for giggles this whole time?
We use our balcony to keep stuff cool during winter here. It's nice because of all the extra space.
That is how I got the idea initially. I moved and didn't have a fridge and temporarily stored some stuff on the window shelves. Then the neighbors asked what I was doing with the food outside. Which led me to think "no, what are THEY actually doing with the food inside?" Haha