I have a 24 year old mini fridge that’s still alive and kicking. It’s a model that actually also has a freezer compartment.
I’ve been thinking about replacing it - especially since the freezer portion no longer works. But I was also curious how much more energy efficient fridge tech has gotten in the past 20 years? Like would I make up the cost of a new mini fridge pretty quickly based off the less power consumption?
I actually have one of those electricity monitors hooked up to it logging the data and I’m still kinda researching - but thought hey I’ll just ask c/nostupidquestions and maybe someone here might know right off the dome! Thanks in advance
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I don’t have answer for you, but Alec over at Technology Connections made a video few days ago related to the topic. That might not have the answer for you either, but as his videos (and there’s a ton of those, even for refridgerators) are among of the best at youtube that is worth cheking out.
But as a rule of thumb, new materials and hardware are better on pretty much every metric. And if your current one doesn’t work properly anymore it’ll most likely uses way more power than it should, as coolant flow/insulation/something isn’t in fully working condition and thus compressor needs to run more often than on a new unit.
I actually watched that a few days ago, main takeaway I got from it was NEVER use a mini fridge with a thermoelectric cooler rather than one with a real compressor.
Legally, those aren’t mini fridges.
Where do you live that they can’t be called mini fridges? I’m in California and Home Depot sells them here as mini fridges. It does say that it’s thermoelectric, but you have to look for it.
They are talking about those cheap “can coolers”. Usually holds a 6pack or so and fits on a desk. The small “dorm style” fridges in HD and lowes are actual fridges with coolant.
Difference between the manufacturer and some seller making a sign. If the Manufacturer is calling them “Mini-Fridge” on the packaging they are asking for a lawsuit
Dunno about the terminology but they usually don’t have freezers.
Most places have pretty strong requirements for things calling themselves refrigerators to be able to create and maintain a cold environment at food-safe temperatures.
TECs have a durability problem. They really want to be energized and left on at that power level. If you try to start cycling them to get different temperatures out of them they break down pretty quickly.
The difficulty in this is that refrigerators often need to step up for a while when you put something warm in the fridge. They really need to be able to run it different power levels which is not great for a single element TEC. So most little crappy for just can’t handle that. You could easily put multiple elements in a fridge and use that to create different power levels. I’m not sure if that’s what they’re doing but it would be one approach that would probably work. Then again maybe they just have poor durability in don’t care.
His videos have some good points but damn I hate his aloof presentation style.
Thanks for the info. Will def check this out!
The manufacturer(s) will publish an energy guide label with their estimated kWh/year energy usage for any given model. Using your Kill-a-Watt or whatever energy monitoring device you have, it should be fairly trivial to measure a day’s worth of energy consumption from your old fridge and multiply it by 365 to get a yearly figure.
Then just see if A < B.
I’ll start with among the cheapest and junkiest available, the Avanti RA31B3S (which has a separate freezer compartment). The manufacturer claims it burns 320 kWh/year.
Yeah that’s kinda what I am doing. If I’m using this energy monitor thing right, the fridge is on Day 9 and has used 20.32 kWhs
If that pattern holds then a modern one should be ~4x more energy efficient…
Also bear in mind that there is only a single evaporator in that thing, so it’s not a case of “just the freezer isn’t working.” The refrigeration system in there has partially failed, wholesale, and you only notice it first in the freezer because that’s the coldest compartment and stuff melting is a very obvious tell. That fridge is probably working its compressor constantly in a vain little mechanical attempt to reach its temperature setpoint, which it will never accomplish because it’s lost compression or has a slow refrigerant leak or whatever. So it’s consuming even more electricity than it otherwise would, and replacing it with just about anything would be a net improvement.
Yeah that’s something another commenter mentioned. Thanks for the math. I think it’s time to say goodbye to this old thing…
Maybe I’ll try this on my big fridge next. It’s getting close to 20 years old itself but functions fine.
If you want a good laugh, or possibly just transform into a pillar of salt, you could stick a temperature logger in your fridge to see if it’s actually holding its setpoint (your big one, that is, not the mini fridge).
I did that in our office fridge a few weeks ago just for a lark. The results were… not good.
I know this is random, but I like your writing style. You manage to throw in flourishes of language and colour, even dramatic biblical references, when talking about nothing more than a broken fridge.
The old adage “they don’t make em like they used to” heavily applies to fridges. Our 30 year old fridges in unininsulated garages (one at home, one at a workshop) keep going through all the abuse and neglect, but the 3-5 year old fridge in the kitchen always has problems. Replacing it with a different brand only slightly increased the reliability. I’d foot the electricity bill for peace of mind.
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go for one from a hotel mini bar. https://www.hotelsurplus.com/
