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Idea
jnikola Oct 18, 2022
Energy-saving refrigerators with separate doors for each compartment
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If you want just some milk, open compartment one. If you want ham and cheese for your toast, open compartments two and three. If you need frozen meat, open compartment six. If you want to check all, just use the big handle like on every fridge.
Why?
- Less energy is spent on cooling the fridge since only the compartment you opened gets warmer
- better fridge organisation
- can be applied to older refrigerators
How would it work?
You could buy a whole new fridge or just install a new door on your old fridge. The new fridge would have 6-8 compartments (or more if adequate) that have their own doors and are separated from the rest. You could open only one, without causing all the cold to leave the fridge. If you still want to open the whole fridge, you could use the big handle on the side to open all doors at once. The older fridges would save energy by opening smaller doors instead of the big ones.
Since the compartments would be separate, you could separate food and drinks better, making smells compartmentalized and not spreading to other food. The fridge would show you the amount of the energy it uses based on the week average. This way you could implement energy saving routines in your daily fridge opening procedures.
Additional information
- This could be used in stores, too, where energy savings would be astronomically higher.
- Fridge doors could be made from smart material that turns transparent when you grab the handle.
Update after Florin Buda's contribution
- Fridge could have an option to use the external cold objects to save energy (if it's cold outside, you could place frozen bottles in the freezer to help maintain the temperature)
- Fridge could have a different compartmentalization organization - the freezing compartments (-20°C) could be put in the middle of the cooling section (4°C) in order to help the temperature maintenance; that way the cooling part could require less energy
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Creative contributions
Winter-based cooling
I like your idea and I'd extend it: i have 4°C in my fridge right now but in 2 months will be even -35°C outside - i'm starting to wonder what would hapen if I'll take some whater bottles (PET) let them freeze to -30°C and put them in the freezer.
The energy consumtion of the freezer should stop for hours.. (and some other perhaps unwanted efects)
You could create a middle container - with the size of about 2-3 common PET bottles that is connected to all other compartiments. There i can either store my Cola bottles or put the super-cooled bottles (any object?) that would keep the temperature warm. Perhap even a sensor to say: ok, bring another bottle from the balcony or I'm starting.
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An inside transparent fridge door to maintain the low temperature while deciding what to eat
According to this article, keeping the fridge door open accounts for 7% of the energy consumption of the fridge, and it is equal to running the washing machine 50 times per year!
Sometimes, we keep the door open for longer because we are wondering what to eat while checking what is in the fridge. To avoid this energy loss, we could have a fridge with an extra inside transparent door. When we open the outside door, we can still see what's inside the fridge, while maintaining a low temperature. The transparent door does not need to be as good at insulation as the main, outside door.
Key characteristic: it needs to be a material that doesn't get foggy easily due to temperature differences.
This can be combined with your idea: the transparent door can be an entire glass or it can comprise many smaller transparent doors for each compartment.
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jnikola2 years ago
Very cool idea. I am sure simple glass doors with rubber seals would work perfectly. A possible downside could be the need to open two doors to reach the food itself. It should be made easily accessible and manageable.
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Michaela D2 years ago
Good point. We need the option to open both doors or one at a time. This could be done with a little button on the handle of the outside door. Button pressed: only the outside door opens and the inside glass one remains closed. Button non-pressed: both doors open and we get directly what we need. Pressing the button should be very easy and effortless.
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Door ideas
The best would be to have doors that give you information about what's inside the fridge. Here are some examples of such materials and technologies:
Switchable Smart Glass Vision Panels
Easily integrable into any door and could be installed on the front face of a thick plexiglass fridge door for the desired purpose. The touch of the handle would activate the transition between a non-visible (mirror or iced) and a visible (completely transparent) look. The downside is that it could be tricky to design it so that you can have something in the fridge door like milk or a bottle of juice.
Dark glass door with backlight
Simple tinted glass door could be installed as a fridge door. Because of the tint, the food wouldn't be easily noticable, especially from the distance. In that way, your fridge would keep that designer look. However, when you grab a handle, backlight turns on enabling you to see what there on the fridge shelves.
Camera inside the fridge
This product already exists and could ne used for the desired purpose. However, to match the idea description from Michaela D's contribution, the camera should have a screen mounted on the front face of the fridge door. Simple touch of the handle or a screen would turn it on enabling you to see what's left to eat. This approach would also allow you to gather information for the checklist, or from the product labels and use it to notify you about missing or expiring food and drinks.
Any other ideas?
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General comments
Subash Chapagain2 years ago
Not exactly the same, but we have a service that uses similar individual pods for fresh food delivery in a customised manner. Have a look :
https://www.cub.bi/cubbi-pod
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jnikola2 years ago
Subash Chapagain Nice! This could be used for the same purpose. I imagine people in shared apartments would love this.
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Povilas S2 years ago
Look at the second one from this list - "Oceania". It's very similar to your idea, except for the "all in one" door addition. It also allows you to turn off the compartments that are not used, smart:)
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Povilas S2 years ago
Your mentioning of a transparent door got me thinking - transparent fridge doors are good enough energy-saving tactics on their own, I wonder why they are rare (especially in domestic settings), is it because of the aesthetics (your suggestion of smart materials would then fit well here) or is it simply because it's harder to make the door thermally insulating and transparent. Maybe both.
I think your suggested fridges would be very useful in commercial kitchens, even more so than in stores, because there the staff have to open those very often while constantly making the food.
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Povilas S2 years ago
Making a door that has compartments that can be opened separately, but also all at once is not as easy as it might seem. You'd lose some space in the fridge that way and the door would get bulkier than it is now (it would be reminiscent of a safe door, I presume). This is because it's not only about separating the space, but also about keeping the thermal insulation. Other than that, I like the idea.
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