Best part: every fridge in every house already does this. You just collect the money!
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
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The pic suggests adding a fan but that will actually cause less heat output, since the fridge will be more efficient at maintaining inside temperature with heat removed faster from the condenser. The difference is slight though, since the refrigeration system's waste heat (equal to its power consumption) is a small part of what exits the condenser, the rest is compensating the heat that seeps into the fridge by imperfect insulation (and does not heat your home anyway) plus a little bit for cooling recently-inserted warm things.
That's... Kind of what it already does though. It's just that it's not cooling the inside enough to heat very much of your house.
Why did I have to scroll to the bottom to find this? Like, where did you think the removed heat was going otherwise???
Heat is stored in the microwave.
Wow, I wooshed myself even harder than they to whomst I was replying. Good job me.
HVAC is just the Patrick star push the city meme with heat
They literally do that already. Heat doesn’t vanish from your food. It’s moved from the inside of the box to the outside of the box.
It’s an air conditioner built into a cooler.
that's the joke. i tried to imply it in the title but i didn't realize that in english you call it 2nd law of thermodynamics rather than 2nd rule
Yea I guess that should have been obvious to me. Sorry.
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Okay, but hear me out. If you reverse it, you'll have a heat pump oven that also cools your house. 🤓
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Fridges have always been doing that for ages. I'd rather not let them dump heat indoors and instead move the heat directly outdoors to keep my air conditioner from running too hard.
Yeah but now you've got to find a place to store or how to discard all the little arrows, and the orange light probably is too bright at night
No joke, I think thermal networking will one day be common in homes.
It exists to some extent already in large commercial building design if only because the business sense of the added efficiency is easy to illustrate at that scale.
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When I was a kid, our family dog would drag his blanket to our fridge and spend the night bundled up in front of it (where the exhaust heat was)
startup idea: fridge with warm little nook for dog
weird kitchen, if i am cooking on the stove and i want an ingredient from the fridge, i have to walk around that wall, and we know that's something we do multiple times
I mean, it's AI generated, so it isn't going to make sense lol
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I have a better idea
One system that is both an Air conditioning system that uses waste heat to heat water. And uses waste "cold" from heating water to cool house.
I can get you half way there with a heat pump water heater.
Thats the point, they both use the inverter based heat pumps, they even use the same refrigerant. By no-one builds one that shares the same unit, so they both dump waste temperature differential into the outside air.
i’ve always been frustrated by this… i want a heat pump system where you have high and low pressure refrigerant pipes like regular water pipes and have AC, fridge, hot water, and drier all just use the same big compressor outside… drying clothes in the summer with the AC running would be basically free (if you don’t have anywhere outside to hang them), using the fridge in the winter similar
having compressors for all these systems when they’re rarely all used together seems wasteful (plus, 1 big system is often far cheaper - not to mention more efficient - than 4 or 5 small systems)
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This is why I don't think fridges should have their own cut out. It blocks the air flow
Can anyone explain why almost everyone operates a fridge inside a heated house in winter while there is "a fridge outside". Would the fridge not need less power to cool down the insides when it's already cold outside?
Am I really the only one in this world with a fridge outside?
- Stability. Temperature outside fluctuates, food could freeze or get too warm.
- Containment. The fridge prevents critters from getting to your food.
- Location. The fridge is conveniently located in the kitchen.
In winter I do tend to keep drinks outside if the temps are alright, they cool down faster outside than in a fridge anyway.
I am using a fridge outside: It is like a small balcony first floor with a roof and cool most of the year. So #1 and #2 are checked. For #3 I have a small Japanese compressor fridge in the kitchen, only for the very important daily things like milk. The mustard stays in the outside fridge. The kitchen fridge never uses more than 30W for cooling. But only IF it runs. So that checks #3.
This was originally what cellars and basements were for. Ground temperature was stable relative to outside temperatures, so it was warmer than freezing during winter but colder than outside during summer. Thus it could help preserve food.
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Fridge is expensive, only have one.
Fridge is large and heavy, not worth trouble of moving outside.
Waste heat from fridge go to heating house anyway with efficiency above typical resistive heater can manage before even consider double benefit of also cooling food.
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I see plenty of secondary fridges outside. Rust is an issue though.
You can get fridges made for outdoor use, but I guess those are more for people who are willing to spend the extra money on having an outdoor kitchen.
if you're already heating your home, then what does it hurt to have the fridge do a bit more of that?
in fact, the fridge is a tiny heat pump using your food as the reservoir. so unless your house is heat pump equipped, it is beneficial energy wise to keep the fridge inside.
if your house is heat pump equipped, then it depends on how the efficiency compare. if you put lots of hot food into your fridge then you should ~~definitely~~ probably keep it inside.
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Id rather have one that sends it's heat outside the house so my AC isn't fighting the fridge. And reverse that in the winter.
The fridge would actually have to work harder though, to maintain a larger temperature difference between its hot and cold sides. So it'll likely use more energy than the way fridges normally work.
In winter, if it's cold enough outside, refrigeration may not actually be needed. You could just pump coolant between inside the fridge and an external radiator to cool it.
But, now you have a more complicated system that requires more permanent installation into the house, and also has an outdoor radiator that needs to be maintained so it doesn't get clogged with leaves or damaged.
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