Tl;DR: Will running a regular fridge in a kitchen that is ~58F at night and ~55F on vacations in winter wind up taking years off its expected lifetime?
I posted this to r/Frugal and it generated some discussion and someone there suggested bringing it to you guys.
All this was motivated by a comment I read on a blog, found here (search for the word "refrigerator"...there is actually a few posts by that guy elaborating on the details of his view; his second response has even more detail). The idea is that although one might want to keep their home temperature low in order to save money on home heating costs, running the fridge under normal room temperature of about 70F is hard on the machine and will result in taking years off its lifetime. This is--I think, it was pretty technical!--because the fridge will cycle much less than it is designed to do, and therefore the a) motor will be not cooled enough, b) the compressor will not be cooled and lubricated enough.
In that blogger's (extreme) case, he is keeping his home at a very chilly 50F and using "microheating" techniques to stay warm at his computer workstation. In my case, I am fine with keeping the house to 58F at nights (my small den stays warm merely from the desktop and two lamps, and my bed is warm enough for sleeping) and 63-65 during the days. On vacation (up to 3 weeks, say), I would set the house thermostat to 55F to save on heating while keeping the pipes from freezing.
Here is the crux of the technical guy's point, and the "fix":
asking the fridge to operate outside its design parameters will cause it to run at a much higher watt to BTU ratio, run longer to do the same amount of work, add additional heat to the refrigeration system from the external electric, and do progressive damage to the refrigeration system that are not noticeable but are significant in the overall life of the system.
This problem is fixed by reducing the air flow on the condenser which makes it less efficient allowing additional heat to build within it raising the pressure and flow rate to the minimum levels for peak operational efficiency and cooling. It allows the system to "build enough head pressure" to flow at the proper levels.
So, is this guy's view accurate? (Both in the damage threat and his suggested "fix")? Or is he off base, out of date, or what?
In my case, I have a March 2009 bought Jenn-Air side-by-side normal kitchen fridge. Their product book only says, "Install the refrigerator where the room temperature will not go below 55F. With temperatures below 55, the refrigerator will not run frequently enough to maintain proper temperature in the freezer." But this is a much different statement than it harming the fridge long term, and it doesn't address what happens if you run it at, say, 58F every night for a few months each winter or 55F on vacations.
Thanks!
Submitted January 26, 2016 at 02:07AM by Manbatton http://ift.tt/1S6UetH AskEngineers
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