Does the cold effect fridge freezers?

[The Bear]

Another Q as a result of my recent house move.
The new place has an integrated fridge freezer. I've still got my old one as it is bigger than the integrated one. Its plugged in in the garage and we have stuff in it. Visiting a friend last week they told me they put one in their garage following a house move and it packed in. They were told ( don't know who by) it was because normal fridge freezers aren't designed to work in cold unheated garages and this caused it to fail. I told them chest freezers are frequently found in garages but they said they are designed and run differently.

Any truth in this, and if so other than bring it indoors is there anything I can do to prevent it. (indoors isn't really an option to be honest)

Mark

 

[doctor Bob]

i have 2 in my garage, ran fine for the last 5 years.

 

[bugbear]

http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/help/buyi ... ouses.html

BugBear

 

[Rhossydd]

It depends on the model.
We had a Hotpoint freezer in our unheated garage and it ran reasonably well for some years, but sometimes suffered bad icing up externally.
It finally failed when it was twenty years old and had been in the garage for ten of them and the primary reason for replacement was the failure of all the door seals.
We've replaced it with Beko freezer that specifically will work in temperatures down to -10C which should be fine for us. Last year it ran perfectly all winter with no worrying icing issues.

So there's no one answer to this, it depends on the exact model.

 

[RobinBHM]

It is true some fridge freezers wont work properly in a cold place -which always seems a tad ironic!

 

[The Bear]

Thanks all,
Looks like I need to look up what I've got, I'll do that tomorrow as I've locked up for the night now.
Though bugbear your link suggests whatever model I have it won't be designed to operate below 10 degrees?
Trouble is I don't fancy a fridge freezer in my hallway.
Although the appliance is 14 years old its always served us well and I'ld hate to ruin it by putting it in the garage.

Mark

 

[Racers]

WE had a twin compressor fridge freezer it worked fine in the garage, then we bought one with a single compressor it worked fine until the temperature in the garage went below what the fridge was set to, then it didn't come on and as the compressor works both the fridge and the freezer every thing thawed out.

Have a look in the back to see how many compressors it has, the oval black lumps.

Pete

 

[woodpig]

We had two under Bosch under counter freezers and they worked fine in our unheated garage at temps down to nearly zero for 9 years before we moved. One of them was in an unheated conservatory for some years prior to that. I suspect it depends somewhat on the make.

 

[Myfordman]

Single compressor FF use a compromise design to apportion the relative cooling power applied to the fridge and the freezer.
If the ambient temperature is too low then the fridge does not have to run often enough and therefore the freezer temperature rises.

Usual manifestation is when people go away for Christmas without leaving central heating running and come home to a defrosted freezer.

 

[niagra]

Ours packed in and we ended up buying a new fridge freezer. The next winter the same thing happened, as it was in warranty I rang the manufacturer who informed me that it wouldn't work below 14 degrees. The fridge should continue to work, it's just the freezer.

When it gets really cold we just put a portable radiator next to it.

 

[The Bear]

Well I finally got to check the fridge freezer. It is a single compressor. I can't find the model number, but its a Bosch and I doubt is anything fancy to be working down to very low temps.

So I'm trying to understand my options.

If I keep it on, I risk both fridge and freezer going off. Is it then likely to restart when the external temp rises again? I realise I will have defrosted and therefore lost my freezer food in the meantime. But will there be permanent damage to the appliance?

The reason I ask is the previous owners left an old chest freezer in the garage. Could I put the freezer food in that and just use the fridge part of my fridge freezer over winter? In the spring I could move it back and turn the chest freezer off.

The above does depend on the likely hood of permanent damage to the fridge freezer rather than just a defrost of the freezer food.

Any ideas?

Mark

 

[Racers]

No damage its just in a switched off state, once it warms up it will go cold again :wink:

Pete

 

[The Bear]

Sounds like thats my best plan then.
Move the freezer food to the old decrepit chest freezer and use the FF as a fridge only over winter. In the spring move the freezer food back and save the eleccy. I nearly gave that chest freezer away a few weeks ago.

Thanks Pete and everyone else

Mark

 

[RogerS]

Just make sure you keep the door to the freezer slightly open else you risk it going manky inside if it's going through freeze/defrost cycles

 

[The Bear]

Good point

Mark