Home appliances like ACs and refrigerators usually consume a lot of electricity. This is because they use a compressor that consumes a large amount of power.
Most people try to improve the energy efficiency of their AC in order to reduce their electricity bills, but in reality, improving your refrigerator’s energy efficiency can save you a lot of money, too.
Unlike an AC, a refrigerator is running around the clock throughout the year, and little tips and tricks like those we have provided here can rack up savings over time.
We have put together a list of our top 15 smart ways to boost the energy efficiency of your refrigerator. Here they are:
1. Avoid storing hot food in the fridge
When you add a hot food item to the fridge, there is an instant spike in the ambient temperature, prompting the compressor to go into overdrive. The entire fridge needs to be cooled back to the set temperature.
This consumes a lot of energy. On the other hand, a food item at room temperature does not give off too much heat inside the refrigerator and causes a much smaller temperature change, resulting in lower cooling requirements, which simply translates into electricity savings.
A good strategy would be to let the milk and other hot liquids cool off before you place them inside the refrigerator. The same goes for your leftover curries, rice, and other dishes.
It would be a good idea to let them cool off on the table just for a few minutes, not for too long before you put them inside the fridge. In this way, the excess heat gets dissipated in the outside environment instead of heating up your fridge. This simple mantra can help you lower your refrigerator’s electricity consumption and boost energy efficiency.
2. Replace the gasket
All refrigerator doors are equipped with a rubber seal. This helps keep the cold air inside from escaping. Over time, with the regular opening and closing of the refrigerator door or spilling of food, this rubber seal or gasket can experience wear and tear.
It may also become loose and even leave small gaps in places, which allows the cold air to escape. Check your gasket for any such damage. If you spot any wear and tear or loosening, simply get it replaced.
A loose gasket means loss of air from the refrigerator cabin. This means that your refrigerator’s compressor has to work harder for longer to keep the refrigerator cool.
This means it is also consuming more power than it needs and wastes precious electricity, resulting in bigger bills for you. Something as simple as replacing a damaged, sagging, or worn-out gasket can result in dramatic electricity savings for the refrigerator and lower bills for you.
Also, when you replace your gasket, make sure that you get an original one from the manufacturer as it may also offer features like anti-bacterial or anti-fungal properties. This prevents bacterial build-up and keeps your food safer and healthier for longer.
3. Clean the condenser coils
The back of your fridge may have a mesh or coils that help dissipate the heat from inside the refrigerator to its surroundings. These are the condenser coils. Over time, they may get dirty and soiled.
This can cause them to not function efficiently and waste a lot of energy in the process of meeting the cooling demands of the refrigerator. The harder the condenser coils have to work, the more electricity is consumed by the refrigerator.
Simply use a vacuum cleaner or buy a cheap bristle brush to clean up the condenser coils from time to time whenever you find that they have collected dust, dirt, and even human or pet hair. Clean condenser coils consume lower energy and function efficiently, thus controlling the overall energy demand of the refrigerator and giving you lower electricity bills.
4. Keep it Away from Heat Sources
Your refrigerator is like a cool oasis in the middle of a warm room. The hotter the room or its immediate surroundings, the harder its compressor needs to work to maintain the set temperature by bridging a higher temperature difference and removing more heat from the refrigerator cavity. What this means is that it will consume more power and result in higher electricity bills. Therefore, it would bode well if the immediate surroundings of a refrigerator were kept as cool as possible.
Moreover, inside your home, you need to ensure that sources of heat are placed away from the refrigerator. For instance, you should keep it away from the stove, the microwave oven, and other appliances if your refrigerator is placed in the kitchen.
Similarly, in other rooms, you would need to keep it away from, say, the fireplace, the back of a CPU of a desktop computer, a table lamp, and other similar heat sources.
This will help the compressor inside your refrigerator run efficiently and consume less power. Thus, the smart placement of your refrigerator, away from heat sources inside your home, can result in decent electricity savings.
5. Use the in-door water dispenser
A lot of times, our refrigerators come with a water dispenser built into the door for easy and quick access to cold water. However, we do not always use it as we may simply have the habit of pulling out a water bottle whenever we need cold water or at times, we forget to put water in the water dispenser itself.
Firstly, you should try to make it a habit to fill up the water dispenser every morning. Secondly, remember to use it regularly, as much as possible, and teach that to the kids, too!
6. Avoid Opening the door
Keeping the refrigerator doors closed as much as possible is a smart way to conserve energy. This is because every single time you open the door of your refrigerator, a lot of the cold air escapes, and the temperature inside rises.
This means that the compressor has to work harder to get the temperature lower to the degree set by you. A lot of energy is consumed in the process of getting your refrigerator to cool down again.
All of this can be avoided by keeping the door closed as much as possible.
A smart way to do this would be to decide what you want from the fridge before you open the door. This may not always be possible but you should try to do it as much as possible.
In order to create this habit, you could put a sticky note on the fridge that says “Decide before you open” – a quick reminder to keep the door closed for longer.
Also, if you have kids at home, it would help to teach them not to leave the door open for long durations, or you could even just lock the door for the kids altogether. Keeping the doors closed as much as possible will definitely result in electricity savings.
7. Organize your refrigerator
Be the person your mum wanted you to be! Yes, keep your refrigerator clean and organized. Remember, you want it to be easy to find & easy to access. If you remove all the useless clutter, like almost empty jars, empty utensils, expired items, etc, from the fridge, you will be left with a lower number of items.
A crowded refrigerator blocks the cool air from flowing properly inside the fridge and creates areas of uneven temperature distribution, causing food to spoil and also causing higher energy consumption. It takes much more energy to cool a crowded fridge.
Also, fewer items in the fridge mean that your foodstuff will be easier to find inside the fridge. The faster you find the stuff you’re looking for, the faster you will close the door every time you open it. This will allow less cool air to escape and more electricity savings, too!
Similarly, you want to organize it in such a way that the items you use the most often are kept on the top shelves, and you can access them swiftly without having to bend down. This again, reduces the duration for which the door stays open and results in energy savings. Hey, who knew being organized would pay off so well, huh?
8. Keep it frost-free
There is a reason why you should keep your refrigerator frost-free. Not only does frost build-up cause the spoiling of your food, but it also makes it harder for the fridge to maintain a cool temperature. This causes a lot of energy wastage. If you use a direct cool refrigerator, remember to check for frost regularly and defrost it using the defrost button from time to time.
If you have a frost-free refrigerator, it can have frost build up too at times, especially once it gets old. In that case, you will need to manually defrost it too. Simply turn it off, empty it out, and let the frost melt away. If it does not melt on its own, especially during winter, use a hair dryer to melt it. This will keep your refrigerator frost-free and running smoothly and efficiently.
9. Set the right temperature.
The energy efficiency of your refrigerator has a lot to do with the temperature at which you set it. Usually, 37 to 41 degrees Fahrenheit or around 2.5 to 5 degrees Celsius for your refrigerator is just about right. If you set it lower, you would be wasting a lot of energy in cooling down your fridge to a temperature that isn’t even needed.
As far as the freezer is concerned 0 degrees Fahrenheit would be the right temperature to keep your chilled food and also to make ice quickly.
10. Use the Power Saver Mode
Many of the modern refrigerators come with a power-saving mode that can be activated using the power-saving switch. One high-end model, an LED or LCD panel, may allow you to do it. If your fridge has one, do not forget to use it.
In fact, that should be the default setting all the time unless you really want something chilled fast and your fridge is warm. Even though manufacturers provide us with such features and options, many of us just forget about them and never actually use them.
Do not forget to check if your refrigerator has a power-saving option and activate it to increase its energy efficiency and save on your energy bills. If you don’t know if your refrigerator has such an option, check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for this information.
If you are using a double-door or multi-door refrigerator, it may have an option to switch off certain sections of the refrigerator when you are not using them.
For instance, you should remember to switch off the freezer when you are not using it if your refrigerator allows you to do so. In winter, most of us in India do not need to make ice and do not store meats, so we don’t need the freezer for several months at a time!
11. Clean the door
If you have a dirty refrigerator, it’s likely the door’s seal is dirty, too. This can cause it to not close fully or leave tiny gaps in the gasket and allow cold air to escape. The inside temperature gets higher due to this and a lot of power is wasted in keeping the fridge cool. The simple solution is to keep the door seal clean.
If your refrigerator has an easily removable gasket, you should take it off periodically and clean it thoroughly with a non-corrosive cleaner. This will ensure that your refrigerator is sealed properly when closed and will not allow the cold air to escape.
12. Buy the right size
When you are deciding on the refrigerator you need to buy, do not overestimate your storage volume needs. If you get a double-door or multi-door refrigerator when you don’t really need it, it is going to use a lot more electricity than a single-door refrigerator would.
Even in double-door refrigerators, for instance, there are multiple volumes and capacities available. The volume itself determines the amount of power a refrigerator will consume. The larger the fridge, the more power it will take to keep it cool. Therefore, estimate your needs as precisely as possible to avoid higher electricity bills.
13. Check the rear ventilation
In most single-door refrigerators, the rear has the condenser coils. These are used to dissipate heat to the surroundings. Thus, they need proper ventilation to cool off fast and function efficiently.
Do not keep the rear of your refrigerator too close to or completely stuck to the wall. You must ensure that there is sufficient space, at least a few inches, left behind the refrigerator, where the condenser coils are located. This will allow them to cool down fast. This makes them energy efficient and reduces power consumption, creating savings for you.
14. Don’t leave it empty
If your refrigerator is empty or has very little stuff in it, you are still wasting electricity as it takes a lot of energy to keep it cool. An empty refrigerator requires too much air circulation, causing a waste of energy. A fuller fridge is easier to keep cool.
Besides that, you could keep cold packs or water containers to keep the fridge cold and help it recover quickly every time the door is opened.
15. Avoid open containers
You must avoid storing open containers in the refrigerator. This causes the moisture from the food to evaporate in the cool atmosphere and makes the compressor work harder and consume more power. Use protective wrapping or sealable containers to cover all your food. This not only results in energy savings but also keeps your food items healthy and fresh for longer.
These are 15 of our top tips to help you improve the energy efficiency of your refrigerator. Conservation of energy not only reduces your bills but also saves our planet from catastrophic global warming, as most of our energy is still derived from fossil fuels, which cause global warming.
We hope that we have been able to help you in your quest to learn more about the energy efficiency of your refrigerator. We hope you will put these tips to good use. Happy savings!