this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024

36 points (100.0% liked)

No Stupid Questions

36145 readers

1041 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)

Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.

Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.

Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.

Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.

Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.

Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.

Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.

Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

ja2@lemmy.world

_MoveSwiftly@lemmy.world

Rooki@lemmy.world

Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world

automodbeta@lemmy.world

L3s@lemmy.world

Replacing an old mini fridge (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have a 24 year old mini fridge that’s still alive and kicking. It’s a model that actually also has a freezer compartment.

I’ve been thinking about replacing it - especially since the freezer portion no longer works. But I was also curious how much more energy efficient fridge tech has gotten in the past 20 years? Like would I make up the cost of a new mini fridge pretty quickly based off the less power consumption?

I actually have one of those electricity monitors hooked up to it logging the data and I’m still kinda researching - but thought hey I’ll just ask c/nostupidquestions and maybe someone here might know right off the dome! Thanks in advance

all 22 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 36 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I don't have answer for you, but Alec over at Technology Connections made a video few days ago related to the topic. That might not have the answer for you either, but as his videos (and there's a ton of those, even for refridgerators) are among of the best at youtube that is worth cheking out.

But as a rule of thumb, new materials and hardware are better on pretty much every metric. And if your current one doesn't work properly anymore it'll most likely uses way more power than it should, as coolant flow/insulation/something isn't in fully working condition and thus compressor needs to run more often than on a new unit.

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I actually watched that a few days ago, main takeaway I got from it was NEVER use a mini fridge with a thermoelectric cooler rather than one with a real compressor.

[–] SpacePirate@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Legally, those aren’t mini fridges.

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Where do you live that they can’t be called mini fridges? I’m in California and Home Depot sells them here as mini fridges. It does say that it’s thermoelectric, but you have to look for it.

[–] Gerudo@lemm.ee 7 points 2 months ago

They are talking about those cheap "can coolers". Usually holds a 6pack or so and fits on a desk. The small "dorm style" fridges in HD and lowes are actual fridges with coolant.

[–] WolvenSpectre@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 months ago

Difference between the manufacturer and some seller making a sign. If the Manufacturer is calling them "Mini-Fridge" on the packaging they are asking for a lawsuit

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Dunno about the terminology but they usually don't have freezers.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Most places have pretty strong requirements for things calling themselves refrigerators to be able to create and maintain a cold environment at food-safe temperatures.

TECs have a durability problem. They really want to be energized and left on at that power level. If you try to start cycling them to get different temperatures out of them they break down pretty quickly.

The difficulty in this is that refrigerators often need to step up for a while when you put something warm in the fridge. They really need to be able to run it different power levels which is not great for a single element TEC. So most little crappy for just can't handle that. You could easily put multiple elements in a fridge and use that to create different power levels. I'm not sure if that's what they're doing but it would be one approach that would probably work. Then again maybe they just have poor durability in don't care.

[–] Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Thanks for the info. Will def check this out!

[–] hydrashok@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

His videos have some good points but damn I hate his aloof presentation style.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The manufacturer(s) will publish an energy guide label with their estimated kWh/year energy usage for any given model. Using your Kill-a-Watt or whatever energy monitoring device you have, it should be fairly trivial to measure a day's worth of energy consumption from your old fridge and multiply it by 365 to get a yearly figure.

Then just see if A < B.

I'll start with among the cheapest and junkiest available, the Avanti RA31B3S (which has a separate freezer compartment). The manufacturer claims it burns 320 kWh/year.

[–] Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah that’s kinda what I am doing. If I’m using this energy monitor thing right, the fridge is on Day 9 and has used 20.32 kWhs

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If that pattern holds then a modern one should be ~4x more energy efficient...

Also bear in mind that there is only a single evaporator in that thing, so it's not a case of "just the freezer isn't working." The refrigeration system in there has partially failed, wholesale, and you only notice it first in the freezer because that's the coldest compartment and stuff melting is a very obvious tell. That fridge is probably working its compressor constantly in a vain little mechanical attempt to reach its temperature setpoint, which it will never accomplish because it's lost compression or has a slow refrigerant leak or whatever. So it's consuming even more electricity than it otherwise would, and replacing it with just about anything would be a net improvement.

[–] Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah that’s something another commenter mentioned. Thanks for the math. I think it’s time to say goodbye to this old thing…

Maybe I’ll try this on my big fridge next. It’s getting close to 20 years old itself but functions fine.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you want a good laugh, or possibly just transform into a pillar of salt, you could stick a temperature logger in your fridge to see if it's actually holding its setpoint (your big one, that is, not the mini fridge).

I did that in our office fridge a few weeks ago just for a lark. The results were... not good.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I know this is random, but I like your writing style. You manage to throw in flourishes of language and colour, even dramatic biblical references, when talking about nothing more than a broken fridge.

[–] algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The old adage "they don't make em like they used to" heavily applies to fridges. Our 30 year old fridges in unininsulated garages (one at home, one at a workshop) keep going through all the abuse and neglect, but the 3-5 year old fridge in the kitchen always has problems. Replacing it with a different brand only slightly increased the reliability. I'd foot the electricity bill for peace of mind.

[–] CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hmm. Seems like combat aircraft never get hit in the engines, nose, cockpit, or aft fuselage. We could save some weight by stripping the armor out of those areas...

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

The government like your thinking so much, they've arranged for you to be kidnapped by the enemy so they can use your expertise.

[–] Num10ck@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

go for one from a hotel mini bar. https://www.hotelsurplus.com/