When I needed one to go in our garage, Beko was the only make that I could find that was actually rated for such a location.
Being an inset garage, it doesn't get very cold, but would still have been outside everybody else's terms, and I didn't want to risk warranty quibbles.
No complaints so far.
Chris
Not at all widely known to the public at large, according to:
Er hang on. Are you saying that modern fridge-freezers only have one thermostat? How do they maintain different temperatures (4 C and -18C) in the fridge and freezer compartments? Surely the freezer compartment will need more frequent cooling (ie a heavier compressor duty cycle) because it is set to be at a colder temperature and therefore for the same heat loss through the walls will tend to warm it up more to room temperature. Or do modern fridge-freezers make some naive assumptions that if the rate of heat loss in degrees per square metre is the same for both cabinets, then as long as the freezer gets a greater proportion of the refrigerant, a single thermostat in the fridge compartment can control both compressors (indeed, they are the same compressor) and as long as the fridge is regulated to temperature, the freezer will be also? I can see how a single thermostat and carefully-proportioned refrigerant flow could achieve two different temperatures, but not why it would *inherently* impose a very high lower limit on the room temperature.
I can believe that some refrigerants won't work as well at lower temperatures because they may solidify instead of remaining liquid. But I can't believe that a single thermostat in one cabinet can correctly regulate the temperature in the other without making some very naive assumptions.
You say "[the dual differential thermostat] somehow sensed the temperature in the freezer" as if it was difficult or required ingenuity, whereas surely each cabinet has its own bimetallic strip thermostat, set to a different cutoff temperature, and then you either have two separate compressors and separate refrigerant circuits or else if you want to cut costs you have a single compressor, controlled by both thermostats using "OR" logic, with one valve per cabinet, controlled by its thermostat, which directs refrigerant where it is needed at that time - in the same way that a central heating boiler that also heats a cylinder of water usually has a single boiler and pump but valves to direct the heated water where it is needed (CH / HW / CH and HW).
I'm sure I'm about to be educated... :-)
Well mine has only one thermostat control, so I guess it's designed so that if the freezer part is cold enough the fridge part will be about right.
(Mind you, the back of the fridge part of mine is constantly icing up, and, in the freezer part, even "soft scoop" ice cream is hard as iron and needs to be taken out ten minutes in advance of use. And that's with the thermostat control set at the minimum. Actually, the compressor is on nearly all the time: about once a day it turns off with a loud "pop" and stays off for about three hours.)
Interesting FAQ answers at:
"Climate class This is the room temperature that the fridge freezer can operate in. The most common classes in the UK are N class which means it should be in a room with a minimum temperature of 16°C and a maximum temperature of
32°C. SN models can cope in temperatures between 10°C and 32°C. Other classes are ST and T which operates best at a minimum temperature of 18°C and a maximum of 38°C and 43°C respectively.""Can I keep a fridge-freezer in a garage?
All fridge free freezers have a climate class which tells you the minimum and maximum room temperature they should be placed in to work properly. For most models the minimum temperature is 10°C and most sheds and garages are colder than this in winter. When the temperature is lower than this, the fridge freezer will use more energy to maintain the right temperature. If it is kept in an out building and it does break down, it may not be covered by the guarantee. Chest freezers are better suited to outdoor houses as they are double insulated."
Note:
Uh? But it does NOT maintain the (-18oC) temperature..
How can that be justified?!
How can it take *more* energy to run a freezer if the ambient temperature is lower and therefore there is less heat transfer from the room to the freezer that the compressor needs to remove. Seems counter-intuitive. But then it always seems counter-intuitive that a vacuum cleaner uses less power (and the motor runs faster) when the outlet is blocked by your hand and the hoover is sucking hardest. I can see why this is (lack of airflow), so maybe there's a similar reason why a freezer in a cold room (more similar to the temp inside the freezer) uses more power.
It's cheaper to buy a new one than pay for that excess electricity.
NT
It was covered by Watchdog 15 years ago at least. I imagine it still comes up at regular intervals (I long stopped watching TV.)
Some retailers do give details of the ambient temperature, at least for some models, even saying 'suitable for use in outbuildings' or similar.
We ran a cheap chest freezer for 20+ years, 7 or so in a shed, the rest in a garage. We replaced it a few months ago but only as the seal failed and we decided it owed us nothing, it still actually worked.
We run the new one, chosen as it was specified to work in a garage etc, in our garage. We also run a normal fridge/freezer in there, the one previously in the kitchen until we had it 'redone'. The fridge/freezer never seems to have an issue, it must have been in there 6 or 7 years.
Anyone know when the new refrigerant (the one that needs minimum 10oC ambient) was first introduced - and why?
Might it have been introduced because it is not freon-based so is less harmful to the ozone layer if it is released when the fridge is scrapped?
There is a much simpler explanation for fridge/freezer problem:
Suppose the fridge thermostat is set to 4degC and as discussed above there is no separate freezer thermostat. If the ambient is a steady 2degC for example the compressor will never turn on. The freezer will eventually warm up to 2degC. This will happen regardless of how good the refrigerant is.
I have a small John lewis "own brand" chest freezer in the shed which works very nicely in cold weather. I think it was rated for use down to 10degC which was the best I could find. I do try to keep the shed just above 0degC in the winter though to protect various liquids from freezing. John
I have to admit that I thought people were having a laugh when they said that there was only one thermostat. It seems blindingly obvious that you need two, to monitor and maintain two very different temperatures. Having just one thermostat, with the temperature of one compartment being assumed to correlate with that in the one whose temperature is monitored, seems a recipe for disaster. How much is a thermostat and a couple of valves to direct refrigerant to either one or both compartments? A pound or so?
Some fridges require you to keep the house almost at normal room temperature while you are away on holiday, which is very expensive when there are no people (only fridge/freezers!) that need to be kept warm.
We have two separate devices - a fridge (only) and a freezer (only). And yet for some reason they have a minimum room temperature of about 10 deg C - right only the borderline of what we'd set our house thermostat for while we were away over Christmas. Given that the shared-thermostat excuse can't apply in our case, I wonder why such a high minimum is imposed. Could that be a non-Freon refrigerant?
As it happens, our house never dropped below about 11 deg C, even though (as far as we are aware) the heating never came on. It would have been a different story if our house had been detached rather than terrace (which gains a bit of heat from neighbours) or if the outside temperature had gone well below freezing. But we'll need to watch what we set the min temp to while we are away. just in case...
Is it not simply a temperature thing? Ie its a bit like you ask why nobody has managed to make a freezer that goes below what we call absolute zero. the reason is that you need to dump the heat inside somewhere and you can't do that. Brian
Why doesn't car air conditioning suffer in the same way?
Our new Indesit has a freezer temperature sensor, but none for the fridge compartment (which receives the remainder of the cold air passed into the freezer).
It also has an 'ambient' sensor, which operates the same on/off switch in the thermostat unit* as does the freezer's sensor.
(* Situated just under the front top edge of the whole unit. Because of that I tried leaving the fridge door slightly ajar, so that the warmth from the interior light might leak out and influence the 'ambient' sensor. Result: The compressor started up at 7oC instead of 10oC, and the freezer's temp went down to the required -18oC! ) The danger with the 10oC minimum is that those who are not aware of it will be ignorant of the possibility that items in the freezer compartment will be thawing out during cold snaps, with the possibility of damage to the 'frozen' food. (Thawing out in colder weather sounds ridiculous, does it not?)
Around the time of the withdrawal of CFCs and the modern central heating system. You have to read the rating plate very carefully to choose a fridge/freezer that will work below about 6C. It is extremely bad news for a freezer as the entire contents unfreeze and spoil.
I have previously posted a link to how to read the plate codes. My brother in law was caught out by exactly this problem one cold winter. Freezer in garage cold weather but freezer thawed out completely = MESS!
Different choice of working fluid designed for operating in the outdoors rather than a centrally heated home. The modern choices of refridgerant mix have a narrower working range than the old CFCs.
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