On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 6:37:55 PM UTC-4, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 6:30:08 PM UTC-4, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 6/23/2015 5:19 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:


I think that 90 watts is for a modern refrigerator.

I think we all agree that extension cords are ok, but they should be made
out of wire that is large enough so the voltage drop is very low. The
longer the cord, the larger the wire.
Wire less than about # 14 should not be used on high current loads at any
length.


90W is for a very old fridge. I just looked at the specs of a 33 cu ft
side by side and it is 8.5A an 18 cu ft top freezer was 6A

No, you have it backwards. Fridges haven't gone up in power, they
went way down. I replaced my 20 year old one that was using about
250W with a side by side that's bigger, think it's 31 cu ft, the new
one uses 90W. The 8.5A that you're looking at may be the max,
instantaneous startup current. I've looked at a new freezer too
during Sandy with my KillaWatt meter. It pulled ~350 W for a few
seconds, then quickly started declining. After a couple mins, it
was down to ~100W.

Thinking about it some more, that 8.5A is probably due to the defrost
heater that only comes on once a day? That would give you a 1000W heater, which seems reasonable.