Edwin Pawlowski wrote:

wrote in message

I just bought an 18.2 CF Hotpoint fridge. I'd like to cover the outside
with 2" foamboard and run it in a cool kitchen to reduce the energy used
from 480 kWh/year to 240 or so, but Hotpoints don't come with these kits.
Would leaving the light on all the time in the fridge compartment do
the same thing? Is there a more energy-efficient way to do this? Warming
the whole fridge box takes more power than just warming the thermostat.

Warming the fridge box is dumb too, as the food will be getting warm along
with the thermostat.

The thermostat would still control the fridge temp. The Hotpoint manual says
don't run it in a room cooler than 60 F... 2" of extra foamboard would lower
the fridge box conductance to about 2 Btu/h-F and the freezer conductance to
about 1, so the freezer would need about 40 Btu/h of cooling at 0 F in a 40 F
room, which might come from a 15 watt bulb in a 40 F fridge box that runs
whenever the room is less than 60 F.

If the light uses 15 watts and the fridge uses 5, on average, that's 20x24h
= 480 Wh/day, ie 175 kWh/year if the room were always 40 F or 26x24h = 624
Wh/day if the room were always 70 F. It would be nice to get this down to
100 Wh, like the Mt. Best chest freezer fridge modification.

With better controls, it might only need 5x23h = 120 Wh/day.

Nick