Finding new Fridge for use in Unheated Outbuilding Help, advice and problem solutions on all aspects of home appliances from washing machines to TV's

[Grandad99]

I've been using an old under counter fridge in an unheated shed, It's only switched on for about 2 weeks each year, during the run up to Christmas to hold the extra food.

It has packed up and not worth repairing so I'm looking for a cheap replacement. Info about some new fridges says not suitable for use in an unheated outbuilding. Would this apply to my very limited use?

[ericmark]

Unlikely you can find a fridge rated for use in unheated building, it can't maintain 4 degrees C if outside is lower than 4 degrees C. What I would do is convert a chest freezer, by replacing the thermostat in a chest freezer with something like the STC-1000 you can set the temperature to what you want, so same unit can be used as fridge or freezer, You just set temperature to -18 or +4 or even +12 to keep wine or +20 to brew beer.

Only chest freezer are suitable for non heated buildings, as they have no auto defrost and are officially always colder than outside.

I used an old fridge/freezer in the unheated garage which is frost free but the garage is part of house so although cold not that cold likely over 12 degs C which is normally the lower limit. I use it mainly to brew beer in, starts in freezer with STC-!000 set to 20 degs and a bulb to heat if required, after first 7 days moved to fridge section this now has no cooling just heating set at 22 degs to finish fermenting beer for another 7 days then bottled.

However if I wish I can remove the external STC-1000 and still use as fridge freezer. The Inkbird ICT 308 is a ready built STC-1000 no need to hard wire simply plug in so a freezer becomes a fridge.