Why My Dad Always Told Me to Shut the Refrigerator Door
My dad always used to tell me to shut the refrigerator door. As I got older and I still left it open, he would (understandably) get more and more annoyed at me.
Recently, whilst searching how to fix a warm refrigerator on Google (yes, fate caught up with me 😑) I found out why it’s not such a great idea to leave your refrigerator door open. And it got me thinking of all the millions and billions of times my dad used to say that to me.
So, this blog is for my dad, as an apology, to all those times I left it open to measure 225ml of milk in the measuring jug… sorry dad. God, I must’ve been annoying. I even argued back! If only I’d known what it would do to the condenser… (all explained below).
Anyway. I’ll be talking about the impacts of leaving your refrigerator door open to your:
- bill
- refrigerator life
- food inside
- mood in the morning (if you’re a tea/coffee lover)
How a Refrigerator Works
Though there are many important components inside a refrigerator to help keep it cool, the main thing is the refrigerant, which is a chemical substance used in the refrigerant cycle. Different chemical compounds make up different refrigerants.
Other than that, there are four other key parts in a refrigerator that allow it to be cool. These are shown in the diagram below:
These components play an important role in the refrigerant’s cycle, working together in the following sequence to make sure your food is well preserved:
- The compressor compresses the vaporized refrigerant, causing an increase in pressure and pushing it into the condenser coils located outside the refrigerator.
- In the condenser coils, the hot gas is exposed to the surrounding air at room temperature in the kitchen (since the condenser coils are positioned at the back of the fridge). Consequently, the hot gas condenses into a liquid state.
- The high-pressure liquid refrigerant then flows back into the evaporator coils situated inside the refrigerator.
- Within the evaporator coils, the refrigerant liquid absorbs heat from the interior of the fridge, thereby cooling down the surrounding air and preserving your food.
- The refrigerant liquid undergoes evaporation, transforming into a gas and returning to the compressor, restarting the cycle once again.
Now you know how it all works.
Bills, Bills, Bills
Another component that I did not mention in the section above is the thermostat. To control whether the compressor should start or stop, there is a thermostat inside the fridge to detect when it’s too warm or too cold. This is what helps to maintain the temperature of a refrigerator.
It’s also what causes the compressor to work harder when you accidentally leave your fridge door open overnight. This is bad for many reasons. To start off with, it means you’ll have a higher electric bill. Bleh.
What’s more is that depending on your fridge type, your electric bill could be higher if you’re someone who tends to forget to close the fridge door or if you live with someone who does.
For example, no-frost refrigerators tend to have a heating element that intermittently melts frost in the freezer. When you leave the door open, the heating element has to work harder to melt the frost that has accumulated on the fridge walls because of the hardworking compressor. So even higher bills. Yay.
Refrigerator Life
Certain parts in the refrigerator may become damaged if the door is left open for too long, the main one being the compressor.
To simplify: open refrigerator door = warmer refrigerator = continuously running compressor maintaining cool temperature = overheated compressor = damaged compressor :(
This can lead to other issues with your refrigerator, including mechanical breakdowns and a higher chance of some other internal components failing.
Ultimately, it could force you to hire a mechanic to fix it and if it’s too damaged, you may have to buy a new one. Or you may decide to consult YouTube and try to fix it yourself, but only make the situation worse… just kidding. I’m sure you could fix it yourself… but I really do think you should call a professional just to be on the safe side :)
The Food
AHHHH. This is the most important part. Of course, an open refrigerator door = a higher temperature even though the compressor is working because, in reality, a compressor can only do so much, especially if it’s a warmer climate where you live.
Although not all food will immediately spoil if the temperature rises for a couple of minutes, it takes up to 240 minutes before food is at risk of spoiling.
According to the FDA, you should be maintaining a fridge temperature of 1.7 – 3.3°C to ensure no food will spoil. The temperature should not exceed 4°C otherwise food may get ruined.
Your mood
So, you wake up after a beautiful night of deep sleep. You stretch and look outside the windows. You hear the hopeful birds singing. Today is a bank holiday. No work. No open shops. Just you and a beautiful nature walk planned.
But first, you go downstairs to make yourself a cup of tea/coffee. You turn on the kettle. You prepare the sugar and tea/coffee in your favourite mug.
You go to get the milk. Then you stop, face full of horror. You realise that you left the refrigerator door open when you took that last slice of cake the night before.
You open the door wider and unscrew the milk bottle cap hoping that the situation isn’t that bad. You smell the top and… it stinks! Great. No tea. No coffee. You can only imagine the despair one may be feeling in this instance (that is if you’re addicted to tea/coffee with milk first thing in the morning).
So, the message of this blog is obviously: remember to close your refrigerator door :)
