So then I started pondering silly refrigerator questions. (Ok, I'm a geek at heart!) Did you know that in most homes, no appliance uses more electricity than the refrigerator, and developing the simple habit of opening the door less frequently can save you 7% on operating costs?
Here's another fridge question. Why does the refrigerator have a light in it and the freezer doesn't? Ever think about that one? Well, I did! The obvious answer is most people open and search in their fridge more than their freezer. Apparently the cost of adding a light to the freezer drives up the cost of the unit so most freezers don't have a light. I stumbled on to a whole bunch more theories if you really want to read them all.
And here's something to think about. If you leave a refrigerator open in a closed room, will it make the room cooler? This wasn't meant to be a trick question, but turns out, it is! The answer: NO! Why?
A fridge can be though of as a "heat pump". It takes air inside the fridge and cools it by removing heat from it. This heat has to go somewhere, and is usually blown out the back of the fridge by a little fan. (If you feel the back of a fridge on the outside it will usually be warm if the unit is running). For this reason, when a fridge is running it is really warming up the room a little bit. Read the rest of the explanation.
So next time you're browsing in your fridge, don't stand with the door open. Not only will it waste your electricity, it won't cool down your room! Now we both learned something.
P.S. I challenge you to count how many times a day just you open your fridge! Then add in the rest of your family.
