ot/ refridgerator in unheated shop

Will having a fridge in the garage that is about 40 degrees in the winter ruin it. The past couple of shop fridges we've had seemed to start not working well once the weather got cold. The older fridges seemed to hold up to the cold tempurature though.

Mom has a couple of freezers in an unheated garage. Here in Ohio. Many many years and they have been fine.
Not sure if she ever had a fridge in there too or not ? I know she has a fridge in the building over closer to the chicken coop but it has heat set pretty low 50-55 ?
I have a small modern freezer in my unheated garage. It has been fine,but it never gets below 32* in there as I think the house leaks some heat into it.

adding a garage kit to your fridge may keep it working longer.

I inherited my daughter's fridge when she moved out of state about 12 years ago, and it's been in my unheated garage ever since with no problems.

Been doing it in the Midwest cold for years never had a problem.

My old fridges work by the cabinet sensing how cold it is inside, and coming on if it's warmer than what you have it set for. Coming on means the freezer is activated which cools the refrigerator part.

In winter, if it's as cold as you want the inside to be, the control says "I don't need to come on, I'm cold enough right now". Hence, the fridge will NOT come on until the garage space gets warmer than the set temperature.

Bottom line - the fridge will "work", but the freezer will not.

Done it since 1987 and never had a problem. It hardly ever gets to 0 degrees here though.
In the mid 80's, it did get to -10 one night.
Richard in NW SC

I have one in my garage and in the winter I set the thermostat to as cold as it can run that way the freezer works.

Jcarrol is dead on the money , I ruined a whole bunch of deer meat several years ago because of it .

Had an old fridge from the 80's in my garage that is heated with a wood stove, so sometimes in the winter there may not be any heat in it for 3,4,5 days at a time. It belonged to a buddy and when he got divorced I gave it back to him when he got his own place summer of 2012. It worked good until it got really cold out and then the meat in the freezer would start to thaw from the fridge not running enough. After giving it back to him we decided to get a new fridge in the house and I moved the house fridge into the garage. Mfg. date on "new" garage fridge was 2003. It lasted 10 months and quit. Luckily I had ice cube trays in it and went to get ice to fill water jub before work and found no ice all water so I was able to save some the meat that had not thawed yet. Went to appliance store where we bought new fridge (locally owned and sells applicances only not a big box store) and talked to owner. Told him the story and told him I was looking to buy a brand new fridge for garage this time. He actually recommended I DO NOT buy a new fridge from him but instead find a used one 15 yrs old or older for in an unheated garage. He said he could sell me a new one and sell me the cold weather kit for the back of it, but that it would most likely not last more than 2-3 years because the new fridges have a gas that is not freon and when temperatures drop outside of fridge the gas actually gets sluggish and freezes very quickly and causes compressor to die. He said best bet was any fridge over 15 yrs old would have freon. One month later wife was at estate auction and they were selling fridge with mfg date of 1987. She bought it for $100.00 and so far so good, although we have had plant killing cold and 3-4 inches of snow we have not had enough to have it get below 45 in garage so the jusry is still out, but I am keeping my fingers crossed because it is a top fridge/bottom freezer so now I don't even have to bend over to get a cold one!!!

Aunt and Uncle had a cabin that was just used occasionally in the winter because of the cold. She would put canned foods in the refrigerator when they weren't there to keep them from freezing.

I work for a major appliance manufacture in the engineering test division. We test our units at all sorts of ambient temperatures...even at -40° and up to 120°. The number one killer of refrigerator / freezers in cold weather is the oil in the hermetic compressor. Since it is colder in the space where the unit is located, it typcially doesn't run with any sort of frequency as it would if placed inside of a home. Which leads to the compressor oil (which is not typically multi-viscocity) to get thick and not circulate through the system with any sort of ease. The easiest way to deal with this issue is put a suitable wattage crankcase heater around the bottom of the compressor.

There are other things that can lead to failure also, but this is by far the most common.

I live in N. central Illinois. We"ve had a garage fridge for 4 years. Garage has insulated walls, is attached to house, no ceiling insulation. We use it for extra room on holidays, keep pop and adult beverages cold. I have no idea how old it is. Extreme cold, liquids on the door and the first few inches on a shelf will freeze solid.

HTH...don t. ....

I've got a fridge I bought used about 25 years ago that I keep in my unheated garage. It works like a charm, cold beer 365 days a year.

Hello d17man,

The weather getting cold is no problem, they just run less. Mine is at 30 degrees this morning. Set so warm one more notch it would defrost. Mine was built in 1940, freezer works just fine, even though does not have a door!

Guido

When I set up my off grid camp I looked at compact refrigeration options. Priced allot of smaller 1.7 - 2.7 units. Interesting thing was their operating range. Most were not rated to run under surrounding freezing temps. The ones with Danfoss compressors fared better. These were 120v units. I settled on a Norcold unit in DC mode. They are not cheap.
How about a propane unit instead?

I have had a fridge in my shop for years now. In the winter it does double as a freezer which is good since that is where we cut up deer that I shoot

That reminds me of what my Grandma did when she got her first refrigerator. She said she put the milk in it at night to keep it from freezing.
Richard in NW SC

My 15 year old whirl pool garage fridge works just like yours.

(quoted from post at 13:39:25 11/13/13) My old fridges work by the cabinet sensing how cold it is inside, and coming on if it's warmer than what you have it set for. Coming on means the freezer is activated which cools the refrigerator part.

In winter, if it's as cold as you want the inside to be, the control says "I don't need to come on, I'm cold enough right now". Hence, the fridge will NOT come on until the garage space gets warmer than the set temperature.

Bottom line - the fridge will "work", but the freezer will not.

Click to expand...

Simple solution to this problem; cut a notch in the door where the switch for the light inside goes. A 40 watt bulb inside the fridge area adds heat which makes the fridge run more often, keeping the freezer cold.

When spring rolls around, put a small metal plate over the hole in the door with 2 small self-tappers. Or, just unscrew the bulb...

I sell eggs year round from a roadside stand at end of drive here in Mn. I bought a "constant temp" frig. for down there. Works great. Cools when it needs to and heats when it needs to.

Oh by the way I have it set at 55* From 90* days in summer to -10 in winter it varies between 51* and 60*

Place I used to work put paint and anything else that they didn't want frozen in the walk-in cooler.

In theory it should run better, or at least more effeciently, in a cooler space. The coils on the back of older model domestic refrigerators is the condensor. When the freon is discharged from the compressor it is a high pressure, high tempeture gas. In the condensor the surrounding air temp cools and condenses the gas to a high temp high pressure liquid. The cooler the surrounding air is the more effeceintly the condensor will condense. The cooler the refrigerant is when it reaches the cap tube, the better it will absorb the heat from the evaporator. If you grab a couple of commercial reach in freezers and place them in a small unheated room, it will be a heated room. The same way that a heat pump uses the High side to heat a space, the high side of your refrigerator will release the heat it takes from the inside and place it in the room.

That has been my experience too. The refrigerator part stays plenty cold, but the freezer part gets less cold than it should be.

I have had a refrigerator in my attached garage since we built the house about 18 years ago. At first the garage was not insulated at all and had no drywall, so it stayed about the same temperature as it was outside. There were times that I had to take all the pop and beer into the house to keep it from freezing and maybe leaking, but I thought the stuff in the freezer would be OK...Not hardly. Almost everything we had in the freezing compartment melted, or at least did not stay really solid, and it was ruined. After that we did not try to store anything in the freezing compartment.

With the garage insulated and the interior finished, but still unheated most of the time in the winter, the refrigerator does much better. We still avoid keeping anything that might get ruined if the temperature does not stay at 0 degrees in the freezer. Since I finished the garage, it has never frozen in there and usually the only heat it gets is from my Wife"s car being parked inside after being driven.

I like the idea of having a low wattage light bulb burning in the refrigerator during the winter to get the unit to cycle. It also might be enough heat to keep pop cans from freezing when it is really cold.

thanks for all the replys. I think the fridge I have now is on its way out. the fridge temp is still about 38 degrees but everything in the freezer is thawed out and no good. I think i"m going to try putting fridge in the cellar where its warm and seeing if it will work any better. chances are it won"t since over the summer the freezer was still pretty slow to freeze ice packs and ice cubes. if it turns out to be no good I picked up another fridge probably from the 80"s that still works

Only thing I noticed was that if you turn the stat down to 1 or 2 the freezer will thaw. 3 is ok, but the beer is mighty cold. Grin.

Mark

So if cold thick oil can be a problem, would emptying it out and unplugging it in the winter (cabin situation) cause any other problems?

Because typical residential refrigerators are hemetically sealed simply emptying the oil is not an option. You could reclaim the refrigerant from the system and if the compressor has a process port, pull the oil from the compressor. It truthfully isn't practical though. It's just as easy if it isn't in use to just unplug it and let it sit. If you do want to use it in cold ambients, then the crankcase heater is by far the best option (inexpensive and effective).