Chest Freezer to Fridge Conversion

Between my book giveaway and kidding, I haven’t had a chance to share my progress on our solar pantry project. I left off about a month ago, when I showed you how we adjust our solar panels. The next step was replacing my old energy-guzzling pantry refrigerator with a low-energy DIY chest fridge.

There are caveats, criticisms, and a couple of challenges that I’ll discuss in just a bit, but first I want to show you how I did it. It was a simple procedure.

All that’s required is a refrigerator thermostat/temperature controller.

It hangs on the wall behind the fridge (the hanger chain was included) and the probe is placed roughly midway in the unit. The knob on the front lets you set and adjust the fridge’s internal temperature.

The freezer’s electrical cord is plugged into the back of the controller plug, which is plugged into the outlet. That’s all there is to it.

In my case, I plugged the controller into a Kill-a-Watt meter because I want to see how much electricity my new appliance is actually using. The meter is what’s plugged into the outlet, as you see in the set-up photo below. The power strip is plugged into the house (grid) electricity.

The fridge surged to 80 watts when I plugged it in. I used a digital probe thermometer to adjust the setting. Now that it’s cold, I’m finding it uses only 0.08 kWh per day—a huge difference from my pantry fridge which uses 2.6 kWh/day! The chest fridge will use less in one month than the old fridge uses in one day.

Caveats? Refrigerator/freezer experts say such a conversion isn’t a good idea because a freezer compressor isn’t built to operate at refrigerator temperatures. That means appliance longevity may be compromised.

The other problem is condensation inside the unit, since it is operating at temps above freezing. (In a freezer this becomes the ice that needs defrosting.) This is especially true of units which have the compressor in a box that forms a shelf. So the interior must be wiped out regularly.

Criticisms? Bending over to get food items is considered an inconvenience. Some people can’t or don’t want to bend over, others think it would be too much of a hassle finding things—although I can’t say that an upright with shelves is any easier. The thing I’m looking for is always shoved to the back on a different shelf! The trade-off would have to be the desire for considerable savings in electricity and a willingness to develop new habits.

Challenges? For me, it’s how to organize it as conveniently as possible. Most people use the milk-crate style file storage boxes. They have straight sides, are stackable. For the 7-cubic foot size chest fridge, they fit nicely, but for my 5-cubic foot model, they are just a tad too big.

The next size smaller milk crate is the 13-inch square. But I’d lose too many inches of storage space to make that a desirable idea.

My plan is to use this fridge for fresh goat milk, cheese, perishable fruits and veggies like figs and salad greens, leftovers, and condiments. I figured out that I can fit nine half-gallon jars of goat milk in the bottom and somehow place the crate on top of that. But how? Here’s what Dan helped me come up with.

I still have some room above that, for which a sliding basket or two would be perfect for things like condiments and salad fixings. Unfortunately, the one basket that came with the unit is too tall if I use the crate.

A six-inch depth including hangers would be perfect. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find them that size. Happily, I found two totes that will do the job.

I may look to replace the crate with a tote if I can find the right size. I like that the totes have bottoms, so spillage remains contained and easy to clean up.

The next step is cleaning out the old pantry fridge. Then we can move it out of the pantry and look toward improving pantry insulation.