On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:39:00 -0500, blueman wrote:

I have always wondered about this one...
Refrigerators are one of the top energy consumers in homes.
In Northern climates, the outside temperature is colder than indoor
temperature at least 6 months of the year.

Why aren't they designed with "heat" exchangers to benefit from cool if
not frigid external air?

If my freezer wasn't dumping hot air into the kitchen then for the 6
months it's cold outside I'd just be paying to heat that room by other
means anyway.

Besides, any modern bells-and-whistles replacement would likely be built
in a country with a poor environmental record, shipped halfway around the
world to me, and be built to the same ****ty standards as everything seems
to be these days - such that it has a lifespan better measured in months
rather than decades, and I'd be buying another one quickly, then
another...