Thursday, September 24, 2015

LPT: Don’t trust old analog temperature gauges for refrigerators/freezers LifeProTips

Getting the temperatures right in your refrigerator and freezer has many benefits. Your food will stay fresh longer in the refrigerator if you have it set to the proper range. If your freezer is set too warm, your food will freezer burn faster. If your freezer is set too cold, you’ll be wasting electrical power maintaining an unneccesarily higher temperature gradient.

I thought I was experiencing some of the above in my freezer. My old analog gauges told me that my temperatures were in the desired range, yet I was confident something was wrong, as the freezer didn’t seem to be freezing food solidly.

I got two new digital gauges for the freezer and refrigerator, and the results are striking:

Temperature Comparison of Digital vs. Analog Gauges

As you can see in the above images, the analog gauges I’ve been trusting to set my refrigerator and freezer are horribly inaccurate. The freezer is off by 10°F, the refrigerator is off by an astounding 20°F!!! I had no idea that these old gauges could possibly be this faulty.

Those of you with modern refrigerators with digital settings are obviously immune to such perils. Yes, I make the assumption that the digital gauges are precise and accurate. Knowing the advantages of calibrated thermocouples vs. calibrated springs, this is an assumption I am willing to make. Also note that my analog gauges are not able to be calibrated. They will be circular filed after this report. This data was collected over some period of time, the differences demonstrated in the gauges are sustained and repeatable.



Submitted September 24, 2015 at 09:29PM by sydnius http://ift.tt/1FwsCc1 LifeProTips

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