Why are fridges in cold climate countries not mounted into the wall of a house so the ambient air could cool the inside?
In: 1559
what do you mean, i literally have a cabinet connected to outside so i can use it during winter like a fridge, thanks to glory of soviet engeneering.
the simplest explanation is :
The architect didn’t think about that during planning. This is so niche solution, that most of those well educated specialist never expierenced using such an contraption. Their university teachers too, so they never heard of that
In the summer it would require more energy to cool and in the winter it would be expelling heat energy to the outside that you want to keep in your house. It’s a net loss year round.
One. You want to tell me you have never seen a mullion heater in a fridge? Every fridge has one.
Two. I am NOT talking about fiction loses in a compressor. Heat from conversion losses (electrical to mechanical is never above about 80%). That heat comes directly from the motor windings.
Three. Heat of compression is all about physics and nothing more. If you decrease the volume and increase the pressure of any gas, you increase its temperature. This heat is removed through the condensing unit and expelled to the room.
Your comment states that practically no heat is added to a room by a modern refrigerator. The fact that condensor section mixed that heat with room temp air might APPEAR to be highly efficient and less palpable, it is, nonetheless, BTUs being added. And apparently more than you are aware of.
Kinda like a heat pump. Lots of people think they don’t heat well because they typically output air that is between 90 and 110 degrees without the auxiliary electric strip heaters working, when we are all used to a gas furnace giving us 140 degrees air. They both put the same number of BTUs per hour into the structure, just at different rates.
Look, pal, I’m not trying to say you don’t know your job. When I was in my early 20s repairing appliances, I knew many techs who were excellent at diagnosing and repairing. They are all still my friends and each had my highest respect. That doesn’t mean they understand the intricacies of the systems they worked on as I now do. And all of them acknowledge that.
I progressed through the years (I’m 70) to become an engineer. Go in peace brother.
The energy savings aren’t worth the extra cost and complexity of designing a hole into the house for that purpose (or realistically, piping the evaporation coil on the back to the outside and designing it so it can work even when the outside is colder than the inside).
Because temperature fluctuates & a sunny day can easily spoil everything in the fridge, while extra cold days & nights would cause things that you don’t want frozen to a hard block of ice, like eggs or juice or, really, anything you intend to consume regularly in a non-solidified form.
Basically, temperature control means food that spoils more “predictably” & is in the state of matter required for most efficient consumption.
Too cold, and also you might be mildly confused by how a fridge actually works as well. A fridge does not ‘make things cold’, it merely exchanges heat with it’s environment. All that heat that was in the fridge is put somewhere else. If you’re in a cold environment where it would be cold enough to refrigerate food naturally you’d be heating your home anyhow. That heat that was in the fridge is just exchanged outward into the house anyhow, putting it outside would just mean a larger temperature difference. As long as there is a temperature difference between the fridge’s cooling bits(which are not inside the fridge, they’re at the bottom on the backside generally) and ambient air exists the fridge will work. Also once things are cooled down already they’re not inefficient at all.
Well, let’s just take soda as an example:
At around 4°C, you have an ice cold can of pepsi, this is normal autumn temperature here in Northern Sweden, but in November, storing soda outside is risky because if the temperature drops below 0°C during the night, your pepsi turns solid and the can might even explode.
Normally, during winter, I put pots of soup outside with the lid on, and then take in the frozen soup a couple of days later, put it on the stove and heat it up, soup can last several weeks like that.
Most of the winter where I’m from you would have to heat you’re fridge if it was exposed outdoors.
Because custom-made refrigerators are super-duper expensive and, as others have explained, it’s not really worth the expense.
Living in Canada, sometimes in winter we put things into the big white freezer ( outside) when the actual freezer is full.
Wanna know why there is a half empty tub of ice cream or a bag frozen veggies on my back deck in February, now you know.
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