Refrigerator/freezer for unheated garage?


I put my 2 yr old Whirlpool refrig / freezer in the garage to storage my Yeti ice blocks and a few cases of beverages.

I does not keep the blocks frozen or the bread, etc were not froze. Put a digital temperature thermometer in and at its lowest setting in was 22 deg but when outside temps went up to 45-50 it got colder.

Anyone know of a refrig/freezer that works in the cold?

thanks

Google "garage rated refrigerators"

Mine all work fine, I have 5, but they are much older than 2 years.

New schit sucks.

No freezer problems here.

Could it be part of the frost free cycling?

I have a Hotpoint freezer in my 3rd garage, that I bought in December 2020 from Lowe's. It has kept everything frozen with no issues. It is manual defrost, which I have not had to do yet. I live in SE Louisiana and my 3rd garage is not heated nor cooled. So, the summers get real hot/humid but during the winter, except for a few days that we get hard freezes, the outside temps are mild.

I have an old one in my unheated garage. In cold outside temps the fridge will get colder and the freezer warmer. I think it's as Longbob said, has to do with the frost free system.

A freezer will work in a cold garage, a freezer/refrigerator not very well, or not at all. A lot of them do not actually have a separate thermostat for the freezer. When you turn down the freezer setting all it's doing is directing cold air that would normally go to the refrigerator, over to the freezer side.

The thermostat sensor bulb senses it's already cold enough and you can't turn it down low enough to make it kick on. That's a problem with closed doors on the fridge/freezer.

My solution was to pull the 2 wires on the thermostat and wire them together. Now it will run, but run all the time. I put one of those electricity timers inline so I could set it to run every so often. Not ideal, but problem solved. Once it gets warm enough, I just plug the thermostat wires back onto the thermostat and use it like normal.

We have a full chest freezer in the garage also, that works fine, but is meant to operate at well below freezing.

I will add that I have an upright refrigerator/freezer in the main garage that to-date has had no problem with either the freezer nor refrigerstor sections. However, this is at least 15 years old.

I've had one on the porch outside in the weather for 8yrs, and never had a problem.

No problems in our garage with the two we have.

I think the problem is on the newer ones, at least mine, is that it is a combo with no actual thermostat for the freezer side. It just takes the air and directs gives more to either side based on the where the dial is turned on the freezer side. That dial on the freezer side just changes flaps that directs air to either side.

The sensor bulb is located outside, underneath the fridge/freezer. I'm not any kind of fridge/freezer guy, but I'm assuming that bulb gets it's temperature reading that comes from the small tube coming from the thermostat. Because the bulb is outside the unit, and if in a cold climate, it's already way colder than any setting on that fridge, and it isn't gonna run, period.

Old willys: We have two "freezers" in our garage (both Frigidaire Commercial's) and they work perfectly (15 years old) - and we have a "Conservator" convertible refrigerator/freezer (you get to choose what its function will be - refrigerate the whole unit or the whole 6' 4" tall unit can with a flick of a switch be a freezer!) which is almost 2 years old now.
They have all worked perfectly since we bought them new and installed them in our 3 car garage.
They sure come in handy.
I can not imagine why your units don't work correctly - good luck with this problem.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

It is a 19 yr old fridge.

Our freezer just quit working after just under 50 years. Most of it's life it was in an unheated porch. It's last few years it was in my basement --- unheated also. I know of quite q few ranchers that have theirs in their open machine sheds.
A freezer was one of the first purchases when my wife and I got married. Best money we ever spent.

Mine will not work when it gets cold. I usually put a portable heater to warm up the garage and it works. certainly a pia but it works

Mine was free so I can't complain, but it is a pain. I spied it in a back alley with a sign on it that said works/free and it was in really nice shape so I took the chance and loaded it on my truck. Works just as it should once it stays above freezing in the garage.

This past winter I didn't fool with bugging the thermostat wires together and plugging the power cord into a electricity timer so I could make it run every so often. We just managed to get everything into our chest freezer, and into our fridge/freezer combo in the house, and I unplugged it for this winter. Once it gets up to and stays around 40 in the garage we will go back to using it like normal.

Here most simply put whatever they took out of their kitchen in the garage. That said - you can trick the fridge and freezer into running with an Inkbird controller like this.

Plug the fridge into the "cooling" section and the inkbird into the wall. Set your temp. I have my freezer set as cold as possible and the inkbird keeps it where I want for fermentation. I put a jar of water with the inkbird probe in it in there. (I also have a warming side/cycle but that's because I'm trying to hold temps to a specific degree and do ramp ups etc - not for keeping ice cold or beer cold)

Same here.

3 in one barn
1 in my ATV shed

2 out on the patio

One gets a little a laggy but nothing completely thaws.

The soda vending machines must have a heater.

Your bread doesn't freeze at 22 degrees?

Yes. One has to revert to the old technology (simple thermostat) for proper functioning in cold environments. All the new motherboard controlled crap is useless.

Find some 1950's brand that's still working, and one should be fine.

The easy fix to this is bypass the door switch so your light stays creating heat. I put a 15w incandescent bulb in mine and it works great. When spring rolls around put normal bulbs in and wire the switch back in

The problem is there has been a refrigerant change that gets thick when cold. It can knock the compressor out fairly quickly in a cold environment. The solution is to add a heater kit or buy a unit that is already garage ready.

They make some kind of heated stick on pad to fool your fridge if its in an unconditioned space. Only reason i know is i saw it on the internet.and everything on the internet is true!

I don't believe that's the problem on mine. It will not try to run, you cannot turn the thermostat down far enough to make it kick on. By-pass the thermostat by bugging the thermostat wires together and it will run and cool fine. Maybe the thermostat board has a built in safety that wont let it kick on, don't know, but it works fine if I by-pass the thermostat when it's cold in the garage.

My garage fridge has beer in the fridge and all the ground venison from last season in the fridge.
Beer is cold summer and winter, deer meat hasn’t thawed.
Old fridge we took out of a remodel.

I thought I was the only one that liked warm soda.

I had a Kenmore upright freezer in an unheated utility room for 30 years. Gave to son and have an Amana upright. No problems ever. Kenmore still running.

My chest freezer and my refrigerator/freezer work fine in my garage. I’m in west Michigan north of Grand Rapids and we have some cold days in the winter and pretty warm days in the summer. I do have some buddies that have done some kind of fix to their beer fridges so they work in the winter and it’s a common enough fix that I know there’s a work around if your unit has issues.