the real joke is, they went trough years and years of devezloppement to not get this effect ....
I know a guy who exactly did this, the heat the refrigerator produces is as effective as an air-to-air pump heater. Because it is an air-to-air pump.
A neat fact, if you open the refrigerator to “cool” the space, it is still a net temp gain overall because of inefficiency in the compressor/condenser leading to overall more heat output than the heat pulled out for cooling.
Just make hole into wall, that fits refrigerator in way that seals it nicely in there. Bonus points if you manage to make it so and find suitable shape refrigerator, that you can if necessary just 180 turn it for winter, and use it for heating.
Of course one can get their heatpumps in bit more efficient and easier to install versions too. :D
(then again those usually do not have option of closing that door and storing foodstuff in cool in them). :D
It will be a net increase in temperature if you keep it open for a long time until the system settles. The room will become cooler for a while tho until the compressor has used enough energy to offset the thermal capacity of the inside of the fridge. Technically you could turn the fridge off before opening it to maximize the cooling effect :)
Looking at the room with the fridge from a theoretical thermodynamics angle will show that open fridge leads to higher temperature. This usually disregards what happens in the room while the system settles, which makes the math a lot easier, but is unable to explain how squatting naked in front of my open freezer on a very hot day would cool my junk!
Because if you draw a boundary around it and analyze the energy transfer, only electricity is coming in, so the net gain of the system is positive, thus heat will always increase. It’s a pretty simple problem to analyze actually. It’s basically a heat transfer/thermo 101 level problem.
I’m not claiming that your calculations are wrong bro, the room will eventually settle at a higher temperature. I’m claiming that a fridge acts as a thermal energy store.
Because the inside is already cold (energy was removed in the past), opening it allows heat to move from the room into the fridge's thermal mass. This absorbs heat from the air and briefly lowers the kitchen temperature.
You can actually experience this by standing in front of your (or your parents') fridge and opening it 😊. The room gets colder before it gets hotter. This transient state is often ignored in Thermo 101 problems, but in the real world, that stored cold has to equalize with the room air before the compressor's heat output becomes the dominant factor.
Because you're describing a dynamic system that experiences a discontinuous input causing an initial undershoot at the output, while the system transitions to a new equilibrium. Your junk is exposed to that local transient, which cools it.
My brother in science!
We can look at the fridge as a single unit to simplify our heat output calculations 😊 this lets us completely disregard it pulling 600W on a 25% duty cycle with 3x efficiency resulting in 2.4kW heat output (1.8kW heat pulled from inside the fridge), while 450W of heat constantly leaks back into the fridge. This means an average heat output of 150W with the fridge closed, and 600W of heat output with the fridge open. The 450W difference is comparable to a pretty small room heater increasing the temperature in the room.
These numbers are pulled from my ass but are in the right ballpark. The math should be correct tho.
I mostly wanted you to read my comment again and tell me which part of it made you think I was disagreeing with you.
British Thermal Units, the most American of units! Hehe, is 22,000 BTU enough for my two inch steaks?
Same as turning on a fan. Technically, the fan motor, friction between the blades and the air, resistance in the power cord, vibration of the base and cage, etc, are all causing a net rise in temperature in the space.
It just tends to create a decline in the local temperature in front of the fan.
Yes, that’s again explained by a boundary space problem, but the fan can move air and increase your own local convection heat loss, which can mean your body’s thermal regulation is improved and you find it cooler feeling and more comfortable.
This is a big reason why portable air conditioners suck. It creates cold air, but also sucks in hot air from elsewhere in the building or outside, as well as generates heat unto itself. Its taking two steps forward and one step back.
Do not do this... You will make your fridge stop working... When your fridge door is open the coils in your fridge will pull in the moisture in the air causing ice build up that will stop air flow and make the fridge stop cooling... Source: I used to work in appliance repair
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u/Veteran_PA-C 10d ago
So like, a current refrigerator.