Will your fridge survive summer?
August 24th, 2015
It’s not long now until Spring hits us, with Summer just around the corner after that. When the time comes, do you reckon your old fridge will be able to stand the heat?
While your fridge may have cruised its way through winter without a care, when the mercury starts to rise, you may want to take another look at your fridge’s temperature settings.
Why? Well, when the weather gets hot, your fridge’s compressor will have to work harder to maintain a stable temperature.
Even if you’ve set your fridge’s control panel to 5°C, which is cool enough to prevent bacteria from breeding on your food, if your compressor is battling against the furnace-like conditions of an Australian summer, it may only be able to manage 6 or 7°C, pushing your food into the danger zone (and not the awesome one from Kenny Loggins).
To compensate for the summer scorchers and save yourself and your loved ones from food poisoning, it may be worth cranking down your fridge’s temperature setting by a few degrees. That way, even if your fridge struggles a bit, the temperature should still be safe for storing food.
The other downside to running a fridge during summer is that the hard-working compressor will use more energy to maintain its temperature. And while keeping your food safely stored is obviously essential, you may end up with a hefty dose of bill shock before too long.
Or worse – your old, overworked fridge could finally give up the ghost, defeated by the hellish inferno of summer (I once saw this happen to a bottle shop fridge a few days before Christmas – not good for business at all).
There are a couple of ways to avoid this terrible fate.
One is to make sure that your fridge is running efficiently. Give the workings around the back a good dusting, and make sure there’s some space left available around your fridge for ventilation of waste heat from its electronics.
source: Glen Bowman on Wikimedia Commons
Make sure that your fridge is filled efficiently. The less empty air for the compressor to cool, the less hard it has to work. Add a few hefty bottles of water to take up empty space in your fridge – you’ll also appreciate them on those hot days.
source: Michael Lehet on Flickr
Of course, don’t overdo it – over-filling your fridge can limit air circulation, so that some section of your fridge will be uncomfortable warm while others will be frosty cold.
Finally, there’s the simple solution of replacing your fridge with a new, efficient model.
At Appliances Online, there are a wide range of fridges available from Australian and international brands, and in many areas you can enjoy free next-day delivery, plus free connection and free removal of your old disconnected fridge, all as part of our Legendary Service!
Leave a Reply