Turn off the anti-sweat feature.
Many fridges have small heaters that keep moisture from forming on the cabinet. This uses an extra 5-10% extra electricity. Most models that have this feature have a switch that lets you turn it off, usually labeled "Energy Saver
Set the temperature for only as cold as you need it.
Fridge should be 36-40F, and the freezer should be 0-5F (-17 to -10C). Fridges set 10 degrees lower than needed (or freezers set 5 degrees lower than needed) can increase energy use by as much as 20-25%. Personally, I set my own fridge to 56° because as a vegan I never store super-perishables like meat or dairy.
To test the fridge temperature, put a thermometer in a glass of water in the center of the fridge and leave it there for 24 hours. To test the freezer temperature, put the thermometer between two frozen packages. If the temperature is colder than needed, then set the fridge to a warmer temperature.
Don't put hot foods in the fridge.
Food safety experts say you should refrigerate hot food to prevent contamination. But that doesn't mean you have to refrigerate them immediately. The USDA says to refrigerate within two hours of preparation (or one hour if the room temp is above 90°). O ne to two hours of cooling off time will definitely make your refrigerator work less. It's a tradeoff -- the sooner you refrigerate the safer the food, but the more energy you use. Of course, meat and dairy foods are most susceptible to contamination, which is yet another reason to not eat meat and dairy in the first place. Vegan foods are much safer.
The tip that you can greatly cool items by putting them in a container and soaking them in a pot of cold water for 15-30 minutes, which reduces the amount of heat the fridge will have to remove once you stick them in the fridge.
Along the same lines, he writes: "A lot of people do not seem to understand that the middle position on a faucet means half cold, half hot. I've seen people fill a pitcher with lukewarm water and put it in the fridge! What a waste -- they paid to heat the water, then they pay to take that heat right back out of the water. Please tell your readers when when they're refrigerating water, they should draw cold water into the pitcher, not warm." Consider your wish granted.
Thaw frozen foods in the fridge rather than on the counter.
They'll help cool the fridge as they defrost.
Pick a good spot for the fridge.
Your fridge will use less energy if you keep it away from heat and also place it where the heat it generates can easily dissipate. Position your fridge out of direct sunlight, and away from heat sources such as the oven and heat registers. Help the fridge get rid of the heat it generates by placing it along an external wall. If you don't use air conditioning then put the fridge in front of an open window to let the heat easily escape. This doesn't just make your fridge work less, it keeps your house cooler too. If your choices for locating your fridge are limited then at the very least make sure there as at least 2" of space all around to allow for circulation.
More on temperature & energy use:
A Sun Frost fridge uses 61% more energy in a 90-degree F environment than a 70-degree environment. Home Energy magazine has a chart showing refrigerator energy use per degree of temperature. But this doesn't mean you should keep your house extra cool so that the fridge uses less energy, because you'll use way more energy to cool your home than you'll save be having your fridge work less. Air conditioning uses way more electricity than fridges. Instead, just put your fridge in a good location, as explained above.
Door Openings.
Home Energy magazine says door openings account for 7% of fridge energy use, assuming 42 door openings a day. But the Institute of Food & Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida
Defrost a non-frost-free freezer before the frost exceeds a quarter-inch thick.
More frost makes the freezer work harder. But better yet, if your fridge isn't frost-free, that means it's old, and old fridges use tons of energy. Replace it with a newer model, made in 2001 or later.
Cleaning the coils helps a little, but maybe not much.
Just about every other Saving Energy guide out there (including an older version of ours) tells you that cleaning the coils on your fridge is important to saving energy. They're guessing. I was able to dig up references to a couple of studies on the matter which showed that the savings is weak to non-existent -- maybe 5% if you're lucky. (source, 2nd link) Now, it certainly can't hurt to clean the coils, but don't expect a big windfall. In any event, I'm openly calling on my readers to test this. Measure your uncleaned fridge for a few days with a Kill-A-Watt meter, then clean the coils and measure it again. Share your results with me and I'll post them here.
Here's how to clean your coils: The coils are the small, winding black pipe either on the back of the fridge, or the slotted vents on the bottom. If the coils are clogged with dust the fridge will use a little more energy because it can't radiate the heat away as well as it could with clean coils. Clean the coils with a wire brush and/or vacuum them with a hand vacuum.
Use a transparent plastic curtain?
You may have seen these in the perishables section of a grocery store -- vertical transparent plastic strips. They keep the cold in while still allowing you to see what's behind them. But here's the hitch: the only material I could find is made from PVC, which is toxic and something you definitely don't want in your refrigerator. And even if you don't mind poisoning yourself, the only source I could find was this bulk roll for $98.95. Seems like a cheaper solution would be to buy a transparent shower curtain (also made from PVC) and cut it into strips. Anyway, if any reader can tell me where to get transparent, non-PVC plastic (if there is such a thing) to use as a fridge curtain, be sure to let me know. Please don't write about curtains or film that are not transparent, since non-transparent curtains are useless for refrigerator use.
Make sure the gasket is in good shape.
The gasket is that piece of rubber going around the door that seals the door to the refrigerator. If it doesn't seal well, then cold air is escaping so your fridge is working a lot harder. If parts of it are coming off, then re-attach it with some adhesive caulk.
Turn the fridge OFF?!
Elizabeth Stone writes: "I was inspired this month to unplug my refrigerator and cool just with ice that I can make outdoors. I can keep the refrigerator at 45 degrees for about five days with a couple of big pot fulls of ice. It had occurred to me how wasteful it was to be cooling something in the winter in a northern climate! It takes more attention and effort than just having a plugged-in refrigerator, but perhaps there are others out there that might also try this if they were given the idea."
That's an excellent tip! Notice you don't even have to turn the fridge off: You can keep the fridge on but the compressor won't kick in anyway because the inside temperature is already cold enough. Then when the ice melts and starts losing its effect, the compressor will kick in automatically, and you won't have to worry about your food spoiling. That way you don't have to remember (or guess when) to turn the fridge back on.
Many fridges have small heaters that keep moisture from forming on the cabinet. This uses an extra 5-10% extra electricity. Most models that have this feature have a switch that lets you turn it off, usually labeled "Energy Saver
Fridge should be 36-40F, and the freezer should be 0-5F (-17 to -10C). Fridges set 10 degrees lower than needed (or freezers set 5 degrees lower than needed) can increase energy use by as much as 20-25%. Personally, I set my own fridge to 56° because as a vegan I never store super-perishables like meat or dairy.
To test the fridge temperature, put a thermometer in a glass of water in the center of the fridge and leave it there for 24 hours. To test the freezer temperature, put the thermometer between two frozen packages. If the temperature is colder than needed, then set the fridge to a warmer temperature.
Food safety experts say you should refrigerate hot food to prevent contamination. But that doesn't mean you have to refrigerate them immediately. The USDA says to refrigerate within two hours of preparation (or one hour if the room temp is above 90°). O ne to two hours of cooling off time will definitely make your refrigerator work less. It's a tradeoff -- the sooner you refrigerate the safer the food, but the more energy you use. Of course, meat and dairy foods are most susceptible to contamination, which is yet another reason to not eat meat and dairy in the first place. Vegan foods are much safer.
The tip that you can greatly cool items by putting them in a container and soaking them in a pot of cold water for 15-30 minutes, which reduces the amount of heat the fridge will have to remove once you stick them in the fridge.
Along the same lines, he writes: "A lot of people do not seem to understand that the middle position on a faucet means half cold, half hot. I've seen people fill a pitcher with lukewarm water and put it in the fridge! What a waste -- they paid to heat the water, then they pay to take that heat right back out of the water. Please tell your readers when when they're refrigerating water, they should draw cold water into the pitcher, not warm." Consider your wish granted.
They'll help cool the fridge as they defrost.
Your fridge will use less energy if you keep it away from heat and also place it where the heat it generates can easily dissipate. Position your fridge out of direct sunlight, and away from heat sources such as the oven and heat registers. Help the fridge get rid of the heat it generates by placing it along an external wall. If you don't use air conditioning then put the fridge in front of an open window to let the heat easily escape. This doesn't just make your fridge work less, it keeps your house cooler too. If your choices for locating your fridge are limited then at the very least make sure there as at least 2" of space all around to allow for circulation.
A Sun Frost fridge uses 61% more energy in a 90-degree F environment than a 70-degree environment. Home Energy magazine has a chart showing refrigerator energy use per degree of temperature. But this doesn't mean you should keep your house extra cool so that the fridge uses less energy, because you'll use way more energy to cool your home than you'll save be having your fridge work less. Air conditioning uses way more electricity than fridges. Instead, just put your fridge in a good location, as explained above.
Home Energy magazine says door openings account for 7% of fridge energy use, assuming 42 door openings a day. But the Institute of Food & Agricultural Sciences at the
More frost makes the freezer work harder. But better yet, if your fridge isn't frost-free, that means it's old, and old fridges use tons of energy. Replace it with a newer model, made in 2001 or later.
Just about every other Saving Energy guide out there (including an older version of ours) tells you that cleaning the coils on your fridge is important to saving energy. They're guessing. I was able to dig up references to a couple of studies on the matter which showed that the savings is weak to non-existent -- maybe 5% if you're lucky. (source, 2nd link) Now, it certainly can't hurt to clean the coils, but don't expect a big windfall. In any event, I'm openly calling on my readers to test this. Measure your uncleaned fridge for a few days with a Kill-A-Watt meter, then clean the coils and measure it again. Share your results with me and I'll post them here.
You may have seen these in the perishables section of a grocery store -- vertical transparent plastic strips. They keep the cold in while still allowing you to see what's behind them. But here's the hitch: the only material I could find is made from PVC, which is toxic and something you definitely don't want in your refrigerator. And even if you don't mind poisoning yourself, the only source I could find was this bulk roll for $98.95. Seems like a cheaper solution would be to buy a transparent shower curtain (also made from PVC) and cut it into strips. Anyway, if any reader can tell me where to get transparent, non-PVC plastic (if there is such a thing) to use as a fridge curtain, be sure to let me know. Please don't write about curtains or film that are not transparent, since non-transparent curtains are useless for refrigerator use.
The gasket is that piece of rubber going around the door that seals the door to the refrigerator. If it doesn't seal well, then cold air is escaping so your fridge is working a lot harder. If parts of it are coming off, then re-attach it with some adhesive caulk.
Elizabeth Stone writes: "I was inspired this month to unplug my refrigerator and cool just with ice that I can make outdoors. I can keep the refrigerator at 45 degrees for about five days with a couple of big pot fulls of ice. It had occurred to me how wasteful it was to be cooling something in the winter in a northern climate! It takes more attention and effort than just having a plugged-in refrigerator, but perhaps there are others out there that might also try this if they were given the idea."
Drivers are powerless when it comes to gas prices. While they continue to rise to heights unseen before, we still need gasoline to get us to and from work and carry out our daily chores. The best we can do is try to economize our usage as much as we can. For most drivers, this consists of curbing how many trips we take and distances we travel. It does not occur to many of us that the speed at which we drive plays a significant role in fuel consumption.
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