5 Simple Steps to reduce your Refrigerator Energy Cost

Step #1 – If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

A Refrigerator might use up to 3 times as much power monthly if located next to the stove

I would love to be as practical as possible and not request a kitchen makeover but the typical home has the fridge in the vicinity of the stove if not right next to it. The logic amazes me!

Refrigerators are used most frequently when meals are being prepared, those frequent visits in a hunt for seasoning, dressings, sauce, meat, vegetables etc requires that the fridge is opened up to 3 times as much compared to any other time of day. Whenever the stove is in use and the refrigerator is open the hot air rushes in and reduces the internal temperature making the compressor work twice as hard to remove the recent sweep of hot air. This process is continued for breakfast and is magnified while dinner is prepared.

While it makes it convenient to get at the things you need to prepare your meal, from an energy saving standpoint, it makes for an inconvenient rise in energy consumption and therefore an unwelcome increase in our electricity bills. The refrigerator is only there in the first place because we are trying to conserve our own physical energy and so we dare not walk to the living or dining room,  which would be the most ideal place to relocate the fridge, in order to get the butter. But think about it, wouldn’t you rather walk a few extra steps and lose a few extra pounds than pay more for your electricity bills? With your savings, you could buy yourself some new clothes to go with your banging new body.

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Allowing some space between the fridge and the stove will push you to spend some more time to prepare your ingredients for your next meal and take all you need for a visit or two. You will have a two-fold benefit, One: you are opening the fridge less hence it holds its temperature for a longer period and Two: if you move your fridge to the dining room there will not be that much hot air, since the stove will be all lonely in the kitchen and the fridge will stay cool and your energy bill stay down.

Step #2 – Unplugging your fridge

Unplugging the refrigerator does not work for many persons, this is due to the fact that they unplug their fridge in the middle of the day or when they are leaving for work in the mornings. It is not recommended that you unplug your fridge in the days, neither is it advisable to do it every day. Here are the hows, when and why unplugging your fridge works.

Unplugging your fridge is an art, you have to know how and when to do it in order to outsmart the device and not melt your ice (that rhymes 🙂 ). The best time to unplug your fridge is at 11:00 pm and back in at 5:00 am, the nights are much cooler and hoping that you don’t have any zombies at home who will stalk your fridge for food, then the nights would work best. You should be keen to repeat this routine on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It is not recommended that you unplug Saturdays or Sundays especially if you have a busy weekend home. Ensure that you only unplug for 3 days out of the week and that you alternate because if your ice melts you will lose all that which you have saved. Please publish a neat little sign on the fridge door for eaters to stay out. Limit visits during the unplugged nights to a maximum of 3 for the fridge and 1 for the freezer. Your energy bill will be smiling at the end of the month if you can keep this up.

Tip #3 – Is your refrigerator full!

This tip is paramount to lowering your cost of energy. The more free space that can be found in your fridge the more energy it will take to cool the empty spaces. Try to keep your refrigerator as full as possible. You may fill containers with water and utilize them as placeholders or purchase bottled water and use them to stuff the free spaces in your fridge. Please do not over pack, this will reduce air circulation always allow sufficient space above items for the air to move around. To enhance the tip of unplugging your fridge, freezing bottled water or water in a container will guarantee that your freezer does not lose its temperature when you implement tip two above. The ice will maintain your freezer temperature throughout the night and keep you saving money on that electric bill.

Tip #4 – Defrost your freezer once per month

Have you ever had a stuffy nose and find your self-struggling to breath? This is exactly what happens when you have excessive ice build up in your freezer. This cause the system to work 3 to 4 times as hard to keep your freezer cool if the lines are blocked by excess ice. Defrosting is easy and should not take you forever, just follow these 7 quick steps to get your fridge back up and running like nothing happened.

Steps to Defrost Freezer [1]

• Remove Food
• Turn Off Power
• Get Towels and a Bucket
• Give it some Time
• Clean It
• Turn It On and Let It Cool
• Repack

What about the washing machine, microwave and all – 5 Other Steps to save energy in your home

Tip #5 – Cool Food Before Refrigeration

This is probably the most known but least used tip!… Please allow your food to cool after preparation before placing it in the fridge or freezer. When something warm or hot is placed in the fridge it drastically increases the temperature and the compressor is forced to work up to 3 times longer to remove the hot air and maintain the temperature. This will also affect food in the fridge especially if placed next to dairy products: cheese or milk etc. So not only will this drive your energy bill up it is also considered a health hazard by increasing the temperature of your dairy and other temperature sensitive products.

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