If yours is like most households, you may be interested to learn that your refrigerator sucks up to 13% of your electricity each month. Fortunately, there are a number of little things you can do to rein in your fridge's energy appetite that will save money and carbon dioxide.
What You Should Know
In 1995 the U.S. government was wise enough to realize that the chlorofluorocarbons in our refrigerators, air conditioners, and aerosol cans were creating a damaging hole in the Earth's ozone layer. Unfortunately, they decided to replace these chlorofluorocarbons with hydrochlorofluorocarbons, which are only slightly less damaging to the ozone layer and 1,800 times more damaging in terms of global warming!Easy Things You Can Do
Make sure the door seals are airtight. If chilled air can escape through your fridge's door, it will have to work that much harder to replace it. Test the rubber seal (gasket) around the door every six months by closing the door on a piece of paper. You should feel some resistance as you pull the paper out. If you don't, you may need to have the seals replaced. Replacement can be quite expensive, however, so it may more more sense to upgrade to a new refrigerator.Clean those coils. Your fridge stays cold because it has something called a condenser coil located on the bottom or back that removes heat from the inside. When the coil becomes dusty and dirty, it doesn't function as well, and therefore your fridge has to use more energy. Unless you have a "no-clean condenser" model (Check your owner's manual), you should gently vacuum or brush off the coils twice a year. Your fridge's efficiency can improve by up to 30 percent! Also make sure that there are at least two inches of space around your entire fridge so that air can flow freely and ventilate the hot coils.
Use the "power-saver" switch if your refrigerator has one. It controls a small heater built into the face of the narrow panel that divides the freezer from the refrigerator to keep water droplets from forming on the panel in humid weather. Turn the heater off except when it's humid.
Regularly defrost manual defrost refrigerators. A 1/4-inch buildup of frost makes the motor work harder.
Keep the door closed as much as possible to hold the cold air inside. Organize and label your fridge's contents so you don't have to spend five minutes looking for a particular item!
Choose a cool spot. Don't make your fridge work harder than it needs to by locating it in direct sunlight or next to a heat source such as a dishwasher, stove, oven or heating vent.
Be strategic with how you fill it:
- Keep
your fridge filled but not overcrowded. When the door is opened, a full
fridge will keep in cold air better than a partially filled fridge
will. To fill up an empty fridge, put in extra pitchers of water. Don't
go too crazy, though--an overcrowded fridge will prevent the cold air
from circulating properly.
- Defrost
frozen foods in the refrigerator a day before you need it. That way,
the frozen food gives the motor a break in cooling the refrigerator as
it thaws.
- Cap containers that hold liquids to keep down the humidity inside the refrigerator and reduce the amount of water that accumulates in the pan under the unit.
Demand the Greenfreeze. Unhappy with the government's decision in 1995 to replace the chlorofluorocarbons in our refrigerators with hydrochlorofluorocarbons, the environmental group Greenpeace went on a mission to invent a completely environmentally safe refrigerator. They succeeded, and the Greenfreeze refrigerator is now the most popular fridge in Europe. It's not being sold in the United States, however, because our manufacturers don't feel like making it.
That's right, even though these fridges would be cheaper to manufacture in the long run, the companies can't be bothered to change their ways simply to help the environment. But you should be bothered--not only for global warming but also for money. The Greenfreeze is up to 38% more energy-efficient than an identical fridge that uses HCFC's, which means huge savings for you. Write or e-mail your congressional representative today asking that the government mandate an immediate phase-in of Greenfreeze technology and phase-out of HCFC's. Click here to learn more about the Greenfreeze issue.
Source: 51 Easy Ways You Can Prevent Global Warming (and save money!), by Jeffrey Langholz, Ph.D., and Kelly Turner