At 07:02 PM 12/24/08 +0000, you wrote: >Years ago I read about Amory Lovins setting up his fridge so it would vent >heat outdoors in summer and, in winter, using outdoor air for cooling >whenever the temp diff was propitious. Anybody doing that? Should be done >by architects in designing a house. >Andrejs
I remember reading that too, and it makes a lot of sense. To pull it off, though, you need not only to integrate it into the design of the house, you also have to design the refrigeration device for it as well. I know of no "off the shelf" product that is designed to take advantage of exterior cold air in the winter. In the summer, a ground source heat pump (operated to dump, rather than pump!) would be more efficient than trying to dump heat into already hot ambient air. It should be possible to use the same equipment that heats the house in the winter to cool refrigeration units in the summer. When we first moved to this house, the refrigerator that came with it needed a new door gasket. It was some weeks before I got it on. In the meantime, it being January, we used the coldest room in the house as a big refrigerator. It was plenty cold (the rest of the uninsulated house wasn't much warmer). I know folks who keep refrigerators in unheated porches to minimize run times. Unfortunately, this does not work very well. You may have noticed that you have to adjust the thermostat in your fridge with changing ambient temperatures. Perversely, the warmer the ambient temperature, the colder the refrigerator gets at a given setting. The freezer compartment is even harder to regulate. The controls are designed for a relatively constant temperature environment. Better controls (including separate thermostats for freezer and refrigerator compartments and the needed ability to self-adjust the cooling to each compartment) would cost more, of course, and so far manufacturers don't see much of a market for high-end efficiency. The low-hanging fruit of energy efficiency has already been picked, with better insulation and more efficient compressors. Since the currently-produced products are not designed for the longevity of their predecessors, further improvement in efficiency could be rapidly introduced. I'd like to see a return to durability along with improved efficiency. Joel _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
