Insulating the fridge yourself and cutting down energy consumption down to 50%

[AllenK]

One year ago i decided to give it a try and to insulate my 18 years old fridge instead of just buying a new more efficient one. I did measure baseline power consumption of the old fridge and as expected it was higher than that of new fridges. I did measure 247kWh per year. I found the best similar modern fridge takes 95kWh a year.
I bought styrofoam and glued most of it outside against the walls of course sparing the compressor and the cooling coils. Some of the styrofoam went inside for example at the bottom, against the back wall and next to the condenser. I had to tune the thermostat a bit cause it was not made for that now better insulation and temperature inside became too low.
After that i did measure again. And again. Power consumption was much lower now: 128kWh per year! The cost in material was 27 Euros which is made up already now after a year because of lower energy bill.

Instead of buying a new one i did save money, i did save the environment because my old fridge is not thrown away and it consumes as much as a modern fridge with energy label A++!

Now one year later i did check the whole fridge thouroughly. I found very pleasing results: energy consumption stayed as low as right after the insulation. There are no signs of condense water under the styrofoam. Temperature inside the fridge is as low as it should be.


For details of the check-up, for all the steps i took to insulate my old fridge and for pics have a look here:

Make your old fridge green by insulating it

I am happy about comments here or at my page. If anybody did something similar i would be interested in your experience.

Allen

[Daox]

I thought about doing this with my freezer only to find out that the coils are built into the outer skin of the freezer. Insulating them would actually hurt efficiency and perhaps even damage the freezer.

[jakobnev]

I just hung a couple layers of bubble wrap on mine with old hard drive magnets. Not quite as fancy.

[Fat Charlie]

Bubble wrap is good extra insulation. My garage doors are on the upwind side of the house and I've got heater pipes above them. The pipes have frozen twice (-20F winters). I bought some rolls of bubble wrap with mylar at Orange Depot and now a few CFLs keep the garage from freezing. The heating pipes are nice and safe.

A couple years ago I got tired of my daughter's room being too cold so I bubble wrapped window. Then she started to complain that her room was too hot. Now I've got layers of bubble wrap for all of our upstairs windows in the winter. The wife fliped out at first, but I explained that when we're home it's dark and the shades stay down all the time- so the wrap isn't taking away any view. The bubble wrap is clear so if there is any sunlight, it'll come around the shades just like it always has.

[AllenK]

Here an update: 2 years after insulating my fridge it is running smoothly at 135kWh per year without any issues. That makes this 20 years old fridge as efficient as a modern A+ refrigerator - just by adding insulation.

Have a look for details and comments: Make your old fridge green by insulating it

Greetings! Allen.

[niky]

Great project!

[AllenK]

Thank you EcoModder Master . It was fun to reduce power consumption of my old fridge down to 50%. I like that kind of sports lol.

[niky]

After checking my "new" fridge and finding the sides cold to the touch, I'm thinking this is worth trying.

Certainly cheaper than the LED light bulb buying binge I've been on.

[AllenK]

Hi Niky,

the fridge is certainly one of the main cosumer of power in our housholds. But LEDs are nice too, i use them as well.

Be careful when you insulate your fridge, make sure that you identify the cooling coils at the exterior of your firdge, they must not be insulated of course. Maybe you jsut stick to insulating the outside, cause insulating the inside might bring hygienic issues and sometimes its difficult to identify the evaporator in new fridges cause they might be integrated in the wall. And some new fridges with integrated freezers have heating elements (yes that is true) inside the fridgewalls. These must not be insulated neither.

Please tell me how it is going with your project, feel free to leave a comment at my blog too.

Allen

[niky]

I have a good idea of where the internal coils are, from years of defrosting the fridge, but I'm not going to insulate inside... space is already marginal for our use.

I'll be looking for suitable material first, then if I can find stuff for cheap enough, I'll be doing the front and the sides, and perhaps adding some around the rubber seals, as well. For cosmetic purposes, perhaps some wallpaper or veneer... or even cheap wood-veneer sticker to match the rest of the kitchen.

If I do go through with it... I'll definitely drop a line.