Are fridges that indispensible?

[Martin]

having faffed about with fridges on boats and in caravans, and come to the conclusion that they soak up a lot of power, which has to be carried or generated, and got rather disillusioned with them, it has made me question what we actually NEED them for!
They're a relatively modern invention, before they were generally available, people managed quite happily by buying fresh food regularly, and salting, drying, bottling, tinning and smoking things to preserve them - could we not reduce the capacity of fridges drastically, and only keep the real essentials?
Looking at our over-stuffed fridge freezer, there is loads of stuff that really doesn't need to be in there (veg, eggs etc) - the only thing we really need a fridge for is for dairy stuff - which could be really tiny! We've become used to the convenience of freezers - I'll often make up a batch of shepherd's pies or curries, and freeze them, but it is the only form of preservation that requires an ongoing energy input - is it justified? -should we get titchy, highly efficient fridges, and try not to freeze things? - discuss!

[Boots]

I say keep the freezer and ditch the fridge.

My fridge is an expensive cupboard, that's all. There is nothing in there that couldn't be stored elsewhere. The freezer, now that's a different story when you are producing your own meats. Am afraid I have 3 freezers running at the mo. All full. But should be back to 2 soon.

I have suggested ditching our fridge many times - and I certainly will not be replacing it when it dies. The thing annoys me no end. I want a series of terracotta pot coolers, looking funky along the wall, in declining sizes.

The girls were horrified with the idea, and my mate asked me when I was booking a holiday to Gaurna (sp?) and did I want to dig a hole for a dunny too? Well, now you mention it...

A fridge is terrible waste of space, energy and food!!! Things get lost in there, and by the time I remember I bought it and dig around behind all the other stuff, it is chook food. If I just put it on the bench, or hang it from the pot rack or keep it visible, there is very little waste. Fruit in the fruit bowl is eaten in a couple of days. Put it in the fridge and it usually ends up being fed to the animals a week later.

Fridges were a dumb idea. Boo to Mr Kelvinator.

[2steps]

I could most likely chuck my fridge, though I do like cold fruit and we keep dairy and maybe leftovers in there too. Not so sure about te freezer as I often bulk cook or use it to take advantage of special offers. some things in there I could preserve other ways - like the berries for through the year but it'd have to be a method that wouldn't effect who I could use them later and also think you have to take into account the time involved in using alternative preserving methods

[Stonehead]

Refrigerators use about 15% of a household's electricity consumption, but it could be a lot less if better insulated models with high efficiency compressors were used.

Vacuum panel refrigerators use something between 15% and 20% less energy than a refrigerator with conventional insulation. The Swedish Ecofridge for instance has a thermal conductivity of 0.005 compared with 0.020 in conventional refrigerator insulation.

Needless to say, the manufacturers aren't changing because they've just had to invest heavily in new tooling to cater for the change to cyclopentane blown foams. (In reality of course, these costs are passed on to the consumer.)

It's the same with compressors as modulating linear compressors are much more efficient than reciprocating ones.

Combine the two technologies and it should be feasible to produce a refrigerator that only consumers 1kWh/day.

After that, all you need to do is regulate to keep refrigerators down to a maximum size. If you have a very big refrigerator with a big compressor, then you will fill it up and it will work harder.

As for freezers, we have three but usually only run one (which is kept as full as possible). The others are only used when we have meat waiting to be collected or on the rare occasion when we've mismanaged our surplus and have overspill.

We also use Savaplugs on all of them.

What I'd like to see is some way of making better used of the heat emitted from the back of them. Perhaps ducting it out of the house under an incoming duct of cooler air, so that the air in the house is changed regularly but still warmed.

[digiveg]

Instead of a fridge, we used to use a trash barrel with holes cut in the bottom. The whole thing was buried up to its lid, with an additional 2ft of wood chips underneath it for drainage. We would buy a couple of blocks of ice when we did a town trip, roughly once a week, pack the food (and milk!) around the blocks, and strap the top on with bungies - because otherwise the racoons would have had a BIG party every night. As it was, I found 5 of them trying to open it around 3am, once. They all shot up the adjacet tree and sat along a branch looking like strange owls, waiting for me to leave.

Of course, this didn't really get around the 'fridge' question - after all, where did the ice come from... but it was a good way of keeping perishables such as milk fresh(-ish) for about a week, in a place with no electricity.

[Wombat]

We have two fridges and I am trying to pare things down to one. Mrs Wombat tends to go a bit pale when I start holding forth abotu refridgeration, but yes, we need to rationalise ours too. Then will be looking at the possibility of a chest style 12 volt super insulated fridge.

Nev

[Stonehead]

If we're going to reduce refrigerator useage, dare I suggest something that I think is even worse - tumble driers.

Whenever I suggest getting rid of them, people have fits and start saying "but you're home all day and can get the washing in", "you don't know how difficult it is with small children", "those ceiling clothes maids are so expensive", etc.

When it's dry outside (and not so windy the clothes will disappear - about 40-45mph winds), we hang our washing out.

When it's wet or too windy, we have a ceiling suspended clothes maid, also called a laundry maid, and a free-standing clothes airer. They're enough for one and a half loads of washing.

The clothes maids are not "cheap", but they are less expensive than a tumble dryer and cost nothing to run.

We also have small children, but we manage to keep them in clean, dry clothes without needing a dryer. And we didn't need a dryer when they were babies either.

So, how about getting rid of tumble dryers...

[Martin]

we've got one just like the clothes maid! - absolutely brilliant! - you can bung wet shirts on a hanger on it, leave them overnight, and you have a nice warm, dry shirt ready to wear!

[Boots]

They look very nice and are a brill idea, and the cast iron is a nice touch, but - I sincerely hope you both MADE yours?

[Wormella]

our little flat doesn't have room for a Tumble dryer so we've got 2 large free standing driers. don't really have time issues - more like Space! it would be easier if the clean clothes folded and moved themselves to the wardrobe but they never do.

I don't iron stuff either - I'm now going to claim that on the grounds of energy saving measures - nothing to do with abject lazyness

[Martin]

I wll confess to having a bit of an eye for a bargain - I think ours was about 15 quid some 10 years ago - it was a "special" in a nearby cheapie shop!

[Boots]

Is a quid a pound?

15 quid if it is 15 pound, is, I think about 30 bucks. That's not so bad. I think I'd pay that - if someone suddenly stole all the clothes line in the world...LOL

Clearly very different climates here and there.

[Martin]

it is indeed a pound - while my laptop is being rebuilt following the lightning strike, I'm running an ancient 300mz borrowed laptop with windoze 98 - it's the slowest thing going, and for some reason, won't produce me a pound sign!

[Stonehead]

They look very nice and are a brill idea, and the cast iron is a nice touch, but - I sincerely hope you both MADE yours?

Ours was a present from a friend. I've got a half-made one in the shed waiting to be finished as we need another one. It's made from steel plate with holes bored in it for the struts, but I've only cut one end out so far.

However, it's a luxury and there are a lot of other things ahead of it on the too-do list. One day...

Our clothes line, on the other hand, is a wonder of recycling. There's a salvaged screw hook in the wooden door frame above the garage. From it runs a three-part length of heavy white cord (all found and joined) that extends to a pot plant hanger on the house. The cord goes around the hanger, then over to the workshop door where in passes through a salvaged eye bolt, and then passes down to a salvaged boat cleat.

The cord can also be broken down into its three lengths and is then used for towing pig arcs (needs to be thrown in with the washing after that one), for tie downs for the Land Rover roofrack, for light block and tackle work, and any other jobs that need stout cord.

[Andy Hamilton]

I am surprised that nev (wombat) has been on here and not mentioned thepot in pot cooler.

I have not experimnet myself as yet and I think it will take a while to convince Emma that we don't need a fridge, but certainly worth an experiment.

Also in the wintertime there are days on end where the temperature stays pretty low, could putting stuff in a box outside work?? I guess there is the problem with freezing and re-freezing stuff though.