Fridge question
 

This is kinda a strange question but its something I think about when the seasons change to the cooler side.

Now that the temperature outside is getting down towards freezing at night I get a warm fuzzy feeling that the fridge is helping heat our house at the same time keeping our food chilled while using less energy to over come the warmer seasonal temps. Is this correct? Its something I can't wrap my head around and therefore i get stuck in a loop of confusing.

It also bugs me that when we wash our clothes or take warm showers were wasting the heat that could be used to heat the house by letting the warm water go down the drain.

And yes I'm a strange duck.LOL

Re: Fridge question
 

take a bath, and drain it only after the water temp has cooled. theclencher likes avoiding florescent and LED lighting. for this reason. he uses the heat of incandescent lights.

Re: Fridge question
 

Agreed, take a shower, but leave the plug in the tub, and don't let the water out till it has cooled. Incandescent bulbs are not a really efficient way of heating the house. I would think its better to use cooler, low wattage light like CFL and LED, and let the home heating system do what its designed to do.

That being said, I normally set my heat on 55, and wear a sweater in the house. I also have a heated mattress pad for the bed. I turn it on to heat up the bed, then turn it off when I go to bed.

Re: Fridge question
 

I imagine that incandescent bulbs are quite an efficient way to heat, depending on what your priorities are. They are 90% efficient at converting electricity into heat...

Re: Fridge question
 

I have thought about that before but I can't worry about it. The fridge is insulated but it does seem to come on more in the summer and less in the winter or maybe I am imagining it.

I lived for a year with no modern appliances. That is an experience.

In any event, I use whatever appliances, heat, hot water, A/C, lights that I need. I changed all my lighting to CFL where practical, etc. Have energy efficient appliances. I am mindful of the usage and don't waste it, but I will not suffer being too cold or hot either.

Re: Fridge question
 

Most of the lights in the house are CFL, and I finally got my roommate to agree to ditch the top loading washer and get a new front loader. Now, not only does the washer use a lot less water, but the dryer dries a load in about 20 minutes, instead of the hour that the old one ran.

Re: Fridge question
 

I've never heard of a dryer that works in 20 minutes. I'm jealous!

Re: Fridge question
 

Dryers run a lot faster when using them with a front loading washer. Front loading washers do a far better job of extracting the water out of the clothes than top loaders do. Its just another reason front loading washers are more efficient. They let your dryer run less.

Re: Fridge question
 

Yeah, 20 minutes is fast for the dryer. But with a good front loading washer that is more efficient, the clothes come out noticably dryer to start with I noticed with mine. This translates into less drying time saving energy. Anyway, 20 minutes is still fast for a dryer. Towels still take 1/2 hour or so with mine.

Re: Fridge question
 

Yes- the fridge is helping to heat the house in the winter by transferring heat from the groceries out into the house.

If you only use resistance heating (baseboard heaters or some sort of plug in heaters), then incandescent bulbs are fine for heating. But if you have an electric heat pump (which is much more efficient because it transfers heat from the outside into to your house, resistance heating just converts electrical energy into heat) then you would be better off using CFL and LEDs for lighting and let the heat pump take care of the heat.

Re: Fridge question
 

Yeah, towels take a little longer, but I only run one load of towels a week, and I take jeans & dockers to work and have my employees wash & press them, so the bulk of my laundry at home is socks, underwear, and T-shirts.

Re: Fridge question
 

Good stuff!!! Thanks everyone!

I remember a friend of mine that had a shed with three freezers in it. The shed was heavily insulated with no heating source other then the freezers. You could go out there in the middle of winter and the shed would be nice and warm inside. So he would keep items that couldn't freeze in the shed also. So it served as a freezer and a warm storage unit.

Re: Fridge question
 

If the shed wasn't insulated, those freezers would hardly run at all in the winter months.

Re: Fridge question
 

Very true.

But lets say you need a cheap place to live could you use this shed's freezer heat to keep you comfortable and not even have another heating source?

As you can see I'm bored at work.LOL

The other thing I was thinking is do mines utilize pipes that are drilled for ventilation and use a well insulated pipe to heat out-buildings?

Re: Fridge question
 

The average temperature in most mines is about 55F, not good for heating. Also, mines can concentrated gasses, such as radon, CO2, and methane which would be poisonous if pumped into a sealed building.

Re: Fridge question
 

if your motivation is to save money, here ya go...https://www.gassavers.org/showthread....rinking+dollar

Re: Fridge question
 

There are drain pipe heat exchangers. Some even for residential use.
https://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/drain_heat_recovery.htm

On the supply side, there are on demand hot water pumps. Hit a button at the sink, it draws hot water from the water heater, and returns it down the cold water line. This way you aren't dumping water down the drain waiting for it to heat up.

Re: Fridge question
 

Check your local codes before installing any of these. Many local codes prohibit heat exchangers such as these because a leak in the device could introduce waste water into the fresh water pipes.

Re: Fridge question
 

For the most part, any electrical device will put as much heat into your house as it uses. An obvious exception is things like the hot water heater, with most hot water going down the drain.

In the case of a fridge, the only caveat is that most of them give off their heat from the back of the fridge, so most of this heat goes into heating an external wall. If possible, put your fridge in your house in such a way that it is completely inside your house, on all sides.

I'd like to rant about how dumb it is to place baseboard heaters on exterior walls, instead of interior walls, since a significant portion of that heat goes into heating the wall instead of the interior, but that's off topic so I'll shut up. :)

We have electric heat also, and in the wintertime we are very liberal about leaving electrical devices (such as the TV or computer) on, however in the summertime we are very careful to run these devices at an absolute minimum.

We also don't run the exhaust fan in our bathroom - we leave the door open during showers to help recover heat and humidify the house. Oops, off topic again.

-Bob C.

Re: Fridge question
 

As someone who worked in the heating & a/c business previously, I can say this... Vents & heaters are placed on outside walls (and usually near doors & windows) for comfort, not efficiency. The installer does not care how efficient the installation is, but is mindful of having to come back and change things if the customer is not comfortable and is unhappy. Because of this, whenever we quoted for a system, we always slightly oversized the system for the house, so the people would be comfortable, and we would not get complaints that "the system is constantly running" (That was a common complaint for heat pumps in the late 80's/early 90's)

Spend a little more on the installation, and you don't have callbacks. I hated having to put off a paying job to go on a free service call.