It's just a box...right?

Wrong... it is actually almost 2kwh per day!

This my dear reader is a magic box that will turn my chest freezer into a fridge, and will save me power and money in the long term.

It is actually an external thermostat unit that you plug the freezer in to and then feed the temperature probe into the freezer. This box then turns the freezer on and off as required to maintain a temperature of 4 degrees. No messing around with freezer internals :).

Thanks to Mr Rudd's money, we've purchased the kit, and will purchase a slightly larger chest freezer as our new freezer (to hold more bulk purchased meat as well as frozen home grown produce). Our current chest freezer will be moved into the kitchen (luckily it fits in the space that our current fridge occupies) and will become our new fridge. Our old (17yrs) fridge that is on it's last legs will retire to the shed to enjoy a new life as a rodent proof food store.

Why a chest fridge?

• It is much more energy efficient than a standard upright fridge or fridge/freezer. Our current unit uses on average 2kwh per day. A chest fridge uses around 0.1kwh per day according to the maker and people I know that have them. That also tallies with our chest freezer that uses about 0.4 per day.
• A chest freezer is a LOT cheaper to buy than a new fridge/freezer

We're lucky that we can make all this work with only minor modifications in the utility room (where the freezer will live) and with no modifications in the kitchen so in total we will still spend less than if we had purchased a new upright unit. Thanks Mr Rudd!

If you want to read more about chest fridges click over to Mt Best, who sells the kits. I'll post updates once we are underway with the room modifications.