fridge ??!

DO you really need your fridge??? i think it it time to start learning how to, slowly learn to live with out one.... I mean here it is, snow outside, and we have this energy consuming freezer and fridge,,,, fuck... are we the most stupid species on earth or what. Everybody should go to an outdoor gathering and see how great meals one can get, even whithout a fridge.... use you mind. We have become brainless robots... I have switched of my fridge since a couple of days. no problemes!

 

Well, it doesn't snow, or even get cold where I live. If I didn't have a fridge, I'd just have to go to the store more often, so no energy savings there. Just be sure to get an Energy Star fridge. The energy savings of a new, efficient fridge over an old one are amazing.

 

I don't have a refrigerator at the moment so I keep all of my perishables outside on the porch, wrapped up in plastic bags. To be honest, I'm not even looking for a fridge at the moment because I could live like this forever but I know come summer, I'll have to do something. I'm thinking of just getting a big cooler and keeping it stocked with ice.

 

Long ago when I was a kid in Michigan I had this idea because we heat the house and then cool the fridge inside the warm house. Why not have a vent that opens and closes operated by a thermostadt? It brings cold outside air into the fridge rather than cooling the warm house air. Just a thought.

 

me'n'JuJu did 10 years without a refrigerator & the ice chest was just a pain in the butt...had to buy regular ice every 2 days or pay bucks for dry ice...food fell in the water & was ruined...and we didn't buy as much produce as we did once we had a fridge, so it wasn't as healthy either

 

But like say you live somewhere that it gets cold outside. You could just have a vent operated by a thermostadt... :^)

 

Any alternative ideas to an ice chest that can be implemented in a temporary residence? If I had the land, I'd make a root cellar but the only other thing I can think of is a pot-in-pot cooler.

 

the pot-in-pot cooler looks pretty cool and should work well in hot, dry climates.
i have family in VT with an unusual fridge. it's a small insulated door on an exterior wall and it opens to an uninsulated cabinet. so basically the 'fridge' hangs off the side of the house.
if you're going the ice chest route get block ice. due to the smaller surface area, it lasts way longer than cubes. some friends have a block ice fridge buit into the wall of their home. when it's cold out you need nothing but when it's hot out , you buy ice.
my fridge is 4 cu ft and about 30 inches tall and there's no freezer. it could be more efficient if it were sealed and insulated better but still uses a lot less juice than a full-size.

 

thanks memo and zenloki, great advice.... I was one month at a rainbow gathering last summer, and we really had some great food, considering the simple kitchen and no fridge. sure, it helps to be many people (we were a couple of hundreds), the shopping could be done almost everyday. the only problem were the rats, having food in the our private tents attracted rats that made holes in the tent. (but in the kitchen we used very hard plastic containers, the food was safe there)

 

i don't use a fridge either... it's cold out here for some weeks, ice-cold for a few days. But then again i don't need a fridge because we can buy everything fresh in the store, and otherwise we can grow things ourselves (since there is no room everywhere anymore for mother nature to do it) to take the fresh things from the plants

 

are you talking about the rats that look like giant mice? they're so cute!
i'd like to suggest that you you hang any food a good height from the ground especially in bear country. more than likely a bear isn't going to walk through a camp but it could happen. in the past i've put all the food in a bag, tie a rope to it and hang it from a high tree limb. this'll keep anything from getting at it.

 

It wouldn't be to hard to modify an ice chest to hold a rack, or racks; but you want milk to sit in the water on the second day, so maybe a special section to keep drink bottles or cartons from tipping when the bouyancy factor takes over.

I want to design window boxes with windcovers for when you're driving...or maybe a skoolie roof-top garden with a windcover

 

Here's another alternative, though quite pricey: a solar powered refrigerator.

 

haha, memo! this is great man... but then maybe you need a place with loads of sun, i guess.
Thanx all of you for so much interesting info.

 

You can live comfortably without a fridge if you alter your menu a bit. Even a cool place like the north side of a building can keep things like cottage cheese, buttermilk, and yogurt for several days. Eggs too. You just need a good animal proof container. Before electricity and also currently in the strict Amish communities, people use cellars with springs running thru them and a catch basin for the very cold spring water. I've kept even goats milk in jars in a shady spot in a creek, in a wire box I made attached to a tree so it didn't float away in a rainstorm. Also, they used to harvest huge blocks of ice in the winter and store them packed in sawdust, in below-ground cellars. Ice will keep a LONG time that way... That's what they were using in those old style antique ice box refrigerators...

 

Maybe you can live without a fridge in some places for some part of the year, but in the sunbelt, it's not too practical. Before you turn your life upside down to do without a fridge, consider that a modern Energy Star fridge uses about the same amount of electricity as a 50 watt lightbulb. An older fridge can use many times that much though.