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Energy Saver: Refrigerator & Freezer Prevent Loss of Refrigerated Air
If you've read my article on Automatic Refrigerator Door Closing then you are up to speed on bad kid habits. Alright, you've screamed, you've yelled and you've threaten them. They know it is just a front for nothingness. Here is what to do. Apply the patent pending refrigerator active kid defense strategy.
Examine the contents of your refrigerator. Visualize this: with the door closed (trust me, the light really does turn off), the compressor runs and runs. After hours of running, the thermostat becomes satisfied and the compressor finally shuts off. The inside of the refrigerator is at set point. All is well. Then the kids are hungry again. They open the refrigerator and out pours a wheel barrow load of cold air that surrounds the left over pizza, casserole surprise and the remnants of a 24 pack of pop.
The defense is to replace that cold air that rolls out with something that doesn't rollout. Rather, that volume stays in place and is still present after the door is reclosed. First restack the normal contents of the refrigerator to fit snug next to each other. For all that extra space that is now left open, fill plastic/glass bottles and other containers with water and load the refrigerator tight them.
Recycle used plastic milk or juice containers. Any size works: gallon, liters, quarts, half-liters and pints. You can use containers filled with air but there is good reason to fill with water. Water offers a flywheel effect. The difference in the energy conservation effect is small but water mass quickly stabilizes temperature compared to air mass. When you open the refrigerator and then reclose it, the refrigerator compartment gets back to the desired set point quicker because of the averaging mass-temperature effect. There is more 'cold' stored in a bottle ...