In article ,
Richard J Kinch wrote:

Edwin Pawlowski writes:

I agree that a frost free may use a bit more, but I'm betting it is
the tiniest bit more.

It's not tiny.

Consider just the ice making process in a frost-free refrigerator.

First, you pay to pump the heat of fusion to make the ice to start with,
with some heat of vaporization from the liquid.

Second, you pay for a fan motor to circulate air in the frost-free
design, rather than using convection as in the old way.

Third, you pump the heat of fusion *and* vaporization, as a substantial
amount of the made ice is sublimated by the circulating air, ice turning
into vapor, as your ice cubes shrink.

Fourth, you pay for the heat of fusion and vaporization, to condense the
sublimated water vapor onto the evaporator coils.

Fifth, you pay the heat of fusion to melt the frost off the evaporator,
the liquid frost water going into a pan at the bottom of the unit.

Sixth, you pay to evaporate this frost water out of the pan into the
house air.

Seventh, you pay yet again to condense this vapor out of the house air
via your air conditioner, and finally get this waste out of the house.

So in making ice in your frost-free, quite a lot goes into wasted ice
making several energy-hogging thermodynamic round trips from liquid
and/or solid to vapor.

Try turning off your frost-free ice maker, and removing all exposed ice
from the freezer. You'll be amazed how much lower your duty cycle is.
Ice making and ice waste makes up a large percentage of frost-free
energy costs, and doesn't quite make it into the federal formulas used
to make the imaginary yellow energy-cost stickers.

I'm confused. What does ice-making have to do with frost-free?

This whole energy-inefficiency of refrigerators started a few decades
ago, when manufacturers got cheap with the insulation, and also wanted
to maximize internal usable space without increasing outside dimensions.
So they made the walls thinner.

Now with thin walls and insufficient insulation, the cold air inside the
fridge started to make its way to the outer shell. Then condensation
formed on the outside if there was any reasonable amount of humidity.
So, they put little heating wires just inside the outer shell, to keep
condensation from forming.

Naturally, some of that heat made its way into the interior,
necessitating longer run times.

Quite the vicious cycle of engineering stupidity. But wait, there's
mo Manufacturers started to put a little switch inside, and labeled
it an ENERGY SAVER. The switch turned off the heating coil. The consumer
was advised that if condensation formed on the outside, he or she should
switch the "energy saver" switch to the "energy waster" position.

Ask the guys who are off the grid, trying to generate power with
miniature hydroelectric plants in their urinals, how to make a real
energy efficient refrigerator. They'll tell you to build it with eight
inches of insulation. And they do.