If you have a large family you probably purchase an insane amount of groceries every month. Some large families spend more money on groceries than they do on their mortgage. When you are buying tons of groceries it is hard to find room in your fridge to put them all. An option that many people think about is putting a fridge in their garage. We will get calls from some of our customers who want to know if their garage can safely support a fridge.
Before you put a fridge in the garage you will want to make sure that you have the necessary electrical outlet to plug your fridge into. Since a fridge uses a large amount of energy you will want to make sure that the outlet that you plug the fridge into can adequately support it. If you are not sure what kind of outlet to plug it into give Sentry Electric a call and we can talk to you about it.
Keeping Refrigerator in Unheated Garage
The next thing that you need to understand is how a fridge works. Your fridge uses the temperature in the outside environment and compares it to the temperature of the freezer to determine how much cold area is needed to keep your fridge cool. Your fridge is designed to lower the temperature as needed to keep your food safely cooled. If your garage is extremely hot your garage fridge will have to work extremely hard to keep your fridge cool enough. This will result in your fridge wearing out before it should. It will also make your electric bill extremely expensive. If your garage is at freezing temperatures it will confuse your freezer. Your freezer will think that it has already reached the appropriate level of refrigeration and it will stop working. If this happens all of your food will spoil. So what do you do to make it so those things do not happen?
Insulate Refrigerator in Garage with Enclosed Space & Other Solutions
One thing that you can do is build an enclosed conditioned space for your fridge to go in. All you need to do is frame an enclosed space around the fridge. This will allow you to control the temperature around the fridge so that it can run properly. If you do not want to build an enclosed space around the fridge you can try a few other options as well. If you live in an area where it gets hot you may want to set up a fan near your fridge’s cooling coils. A ceiling fan or a pedestal fan set up near the fridge should work. If you live somewhere humid you may want to set up a dehumidifier to help keep things dry inside the garage. If you live where temperature gets below freezing you can install a heating coil around the thermostat on the fridge. Many manufacturers actually make heating coils for their fridges and freezers.
Electrical Services in Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien, Norwalk, Westport, Southbury, Stamford, CT & Fairfield County, Connecticut
We hope that if your family would benefit from a fridge in the garage that you take the necessary precautions to make it work effectively. If you need an outlet or fan installed give us a call today and Sentry Electric can come out and get everything installed for you.
