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Wayne Whitney

On 2008-04-15, wrote:

I think so. This started when Dr. Chalko (whose day job seems to involve
helicopter aerodynamics) noticed that chest freezers used less electricity
than fridges, despite their larger inside-outside temperature differences.

Hmm, looking at the EPA energy star data, they use about the same
amount of electricity as fridges of comparable size. Which is still
impressive, given the larger difference in temperature difference.

Another data point is to compare upright, freezer only, manual defrost
units with chest freezers (which are all manual defrost, at least the
energy star ones). For 15-17 ft^3, the chest freezers use 350-360
kwh/year. While for 15-18 ft^3, the upright freezers use 409-430
kwh/year. But, I haven't checked the energy star testing procedure to
see whether they are opening the doors or not.

There are also commercially available chest refrigerators (e.g. by
Summit), but they are much more expensive than a chest freezer
conversion. I also couldn't find the usage data on them.

Cheers, Wayne