posted by katlupe on Jul 20
When we first moved into our house in 1999, I was thrilled that it included a Servel gas refrigerator. It was great! I loved the fact that a gas refrigerator makes no noise at all. Very quiet compared to every electric refrigerator I have ever owned or been near. I remember turning my tv or stereo up when the refrigerator started running as they are so noisy. Even now, when I am at someone’s house I hear that loud noise and sometimes have to ask what it is. I forget! Then I am thankful I do not have one of those in my own home.
For the most part I did like my gas refrigerator as it kept the food cold constantly. No varying the temperatures. I did not like paying the propane bill though. I also have a propane gas stove so the two together kept my bill constant too! In the last couple of years my husband had put insulation in our house and has been remodeling my kitchen. It closed up some open spaces in the walls and the fumes from the propane burner in the refrigerator was making me very sick. I knew it was affecting me even though it didn’t seem to bother my son or my husband or even our pets. So my husband being the sweet man he is, took it out and we sold it. Now we have been living for over a year with no refrigeration at all. Just the cool air coming up from our root cellar into the pantry during the day. Of course we have an ice chest in the pantry. Our root cellar contributes greatly to us being able to live this way though.
The main reason we are sticking it out by not having a refrigerator is that our solar system is very small. At this point we are putting money into our house remodeling project which is badly needed. The battery room that is being put in our cellar is going to hold our 24 locomative batteries that we presently use for storing our power. Right now they are still in my living room! When that is finished I hope to add at least one, but hopefully two more solar panels to our present system. Then we can purchase the Sundanzer refrigerator and the seperate unit freezer. Those two items will give us all the refrigeration and frozen storage we need.
These units make off-the-grid homes able to have less equipment but still have superior refrigeration. They are built as chest freezers were and still are. Those are the most energy efficient models you can buy. When you open them all your cold air doesn’t rush out. The SunDanzer units are built with more insulation than most models. 4.33 inches of polyurethane insulation with coated steel cabinets. These units have low energy consumption which makes them able to operate on the smaller more affordable alternative energy systems. The perfect choice for someone new to off-the-grid living or just setting up their system.
We met a couple who have living off-the-grid for nineteen years and they had both the refrigerator and freezer and were quite pleased with them. They told us that each unit used about as much power as a laptop computer. For a 70 degree room that would be about 7 amp hours daily for the 5.8 cubic foot refrigerator and 23 amp hours for the freezer. A 90 degree room would use 14 amp hours, and the freezer would consume 37 amp hours. Those figures would be more for the 8 cubic foot units. I have gotten in the habit of canning all of my meats, poultry, milk, cheese and butter and do not plan on changing that as we really like the convenience of those foods….not to mention the taste! So we can easily get by with the smaller unit.
It just makes sense to have refrigeration that does not cost you any money to a gas company. For us, our lawn mower usage is free so it was worth the upfront cost and it will be the same with our refrigeration and freezer. We are striving to be totally self-sufficient on our off-the-grid homestead, Peaceful Forest.
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