Refrgerator Cooling May 11, 2023, 08:59:53 am A question....My sweet wife, LB, believes we should turn on the refrigerator a day ahead before we leave home to cool said appliance. I claim it is a waste because once you open the door to place the food you lose all the cool air. <smile> Of course I follow LB's request because I'm a good mate. What think you all?glen
Re: Refrgerator Cooling Reply #1 – May 11, 2023, 10:15:33 am There is enough thermal mass in the fridge and freezer body to retain 'coldness' while loading your COLD food in the fridge and FROZEN food in the freezer - to make it worthwhile pre-cooling. In addition, we increase that mass by putting ice-packs in the freezer and keeping them there in use.Steve
Re: Refrgerator Cooling Reply #2 – May 11, 2023, 11:07:44 am In our experience, it takes a good 8-12 hours to cool the refrigerator's interior and freezer, longer in hot weather.Absorption refrigerators do not have the cooling power of an electric compressor refrigerator, they need a head start if you want the food that has just been loaded to stay at 40 degrees or lower. A warm refrigerator may let the contents gets too warm for safety while waiting for the refrigerator to cool down. It's your choice, food poisoning is a great weight loss method.Larry 2 Likes
Re: Refrgerator Cooling Reply #3 – May 11, 2023, 11:58:51 am On top of the advantages of prechilling the fridge for a journey, it will give you time to determine if the fridge has any issues prior to departure. While a days notice to make repairs may not give you time to facilitate the task, it will give you time to obtain an alternative refrigeration source.Personally, I have my RV fridge running on shore power 24/7. Since our rig is in our driveway, it’s a great backup for household food items. I always have a couple of 1/2 gallons of half & half in the rig for my morning coffee. I don’t mess around boy.Kent 2 Likes
Re: Refrgerator Cooling Reply #4 – May 11, 2023, 12:53:39 pm " we increase that mass by putting ice-packs in the freezer and keeping them there in use."We found it useful to keep two half-gallon bottles of water frozen in the freezer and alternating them in and out of an auxiliary cooler where I stored less vulnerable produce. It still needed some cooling, but not as much as the things in the refrigerator proper.While requiring the space for only two containers, I had the use of four of them because of the swapping routine that I did daily - two fresh ones in, and the two most melted ones back into the Lazy Daze freezer. Extra insulation around the cooler made this very easy and useful. We did not drink cold drinks of any kind, but presume this scheme would be really good for that purpose, too.Would also be useful for taking the heavy load off the built-in refrigerator by doing this Freezer Swap Dance with just the regular refrigerator. Just start out with four fully-frozen containers, and a smidge of extra room in the freezer. Virtual hugs, Judie
Re: Refrgerator Cooling Reply #5 – May 11, 2023, 03:52:47 pm Quote from: Kent Heckethorn - May 11, 2023, 11:58:51 amOn top of the advantages of prechilling the fridge for a journey, it will give you time to determine if the fridge has any issues prior to departure. While a days notice to make repairs may not give you time to facilitate the task, it will give you time to obtain an alternative refrigeration source.Or time to realize you forgot to turn the propane back on.This happened last month, put my food & ice into the fridge and turned it on, saw the propane (gas) light come on and walked away. 30 minutes late, noticed it’s off, turned it back on, walked away, went off again. First panic set in as I would need to fix something before the big trip, reached for the manual on troubleshooting then dawned on me the propane was off at the tank. 1 Likes
Re: Refrgerator Cooling Reply #6 – May 11, 2023, 05:00:28 pm Speaking of pre-chilling fridges, when I got ORWAN back from Quality Solar's installation of 300AH Lithium and 2KW inverter, I 'tested' it by chilling the reefer.Chilled overnight nicely, and only used 220AH dropping the battery to around 30%. I wanted to see how long it would take to recover...... That day we got the first of a series of 9 atmospheric rivers dumping rain almost continuously in succession. It took a couple days to get the battery done. LB is right, as always 2 Likes
Re: Refrgerator Cooling Reply #7 – May 11, 2023, 10:59:13 pm "I claim it is a waste because once you open the door to place the food you lose all the cool air."Everybody "knows" that when you open the refrigerator door, you let all the cold out. But do you? We're talking thermal mass here. When your fridge is empty, the air inside weighs about 8 ounces. When it's normally loaded with food, the air inside probably weighs a little over half that much. Meanwhile, you probably have five or ten pounds of food in there. So letting out a fridge-full of cold air (or letting in the warm air that replaces it) probably isn't significant. Putting a load of warm food into the fridge does matter, though. So the advice others have given here is good: chill or freeze a few containers of water at home and load them into the RV fridge when pre-chilling it, to help speed up the process. And keep plenty of food, or at least jugs of water, in the fridge when traveling to act as a "thermal flywheel" that will help stabilize its internal temperature as the outside temperature fluctuates. 1 Likes
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Topic: Refrgerator Cooling (Read 169 times)
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