Not necessarily.
I just bought a new Galanz retro-style, frost-free 12 cu. ft. refrigerator/freezer for the basement media room, and it's rated to use only 1.2A @ 115V (138VA) and 312 kWH/year.
They seem to be making refrigerators pretty efficient these days.

Oh absolutely I agree as to the newer units efficiency. Just bought a new 20 cubic foot freezer. What I was getting at is a 240 watt load for even a small generator isn't much of a load. The new freezer was not in my plan but our main freezer in the pantry decided to stop sometime Saturday afternoon. Trying to find dry ice on a Sunday was fun. Had a replacement in place Monday morning. Then I decided to troubleshoot the old unit. Faulty thermostat so new one ordered. I guess one of the kids gets a nice clean 7 year old freezer.

Ron

 

Well alrighty. 2.0 Amps at 115 VAC is a very light load. You are only looking at about a 230 Watt load. I am guessing a small refrigerator. Possibly like those used by students in dormitories. I have one that is 115 Volt 1.0 Amp I use for beverages. It even has a tiny freezer. You are looking a very small portable generator. Brand names like Honda come to mind, while not inexpensive they are highly reliable. Here in the US there are also units from Harbor Freight which are very inexpensive but I can't attest to their reliability. All low power units like this are manual pull start and do not require much strength to pull start. Not knowing your budget I can't make a call but something like this little 2.0 HP gasoline unit would be way more than enough allowing for maybe some illumination. The

• 1500 starting watts and 900 running watts

is a good reference to what I mentioned earlier. It will handle a 1500 watt peak and provide 900 continuous watts. Moderate load you get 8 hours on a gallon of gasoline. Not bad at all. Figure a 5 gallon can of gas buys you over 40 hours of run time. During a mains power loss you just run enough to make cold, then shut down and make cold as needed.

There are other options to run a fridge like inverters powered off batteries but when the batteries die?

Ron

Ty. It is not a small fridge. It is a huge freezer.......
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Frigida...emp-ENERGY-STAR-in-White-FFUE2022AW/317876230

This is the generator that i am trying to buy....https://www.samsclub.com/p/wgen5300dfv-in-club-980249772/prod24521605?xid=plp_product_2

 

Ty. It is not a small fridge. It is a huge freezer.......
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Frigida...emp-ENERGY-STAR-in-White-FFUE2022AW/317876230

This is the generator that i am trying to buy....https://www.samsclub.com/p/wgen5300dfv-in-club-980249772/prod24521605?xid=plp_product_2

Wow. This was my weekend of Freezer.

Apparently sometime Saturday afternoon our freezer, a 20 cubic foot Kenmore decided to die. We have had it for 7 years bought new. It was manufactured in 2014. Wife can normally hear it hum and mentioned it seemed quiet mid morning Sunday. I shove a temperature probe in it and it's getting warm at about 25 F. OK an easy few grand of stuff in it, just wonderful. Now desperately seeking dry ice on a Sunday in Cleveland, Ohio suburbs and outside is in the 40s. Finally find dry ice and buy 30 pounds of the stuff and put it in dead freezer. Next stop Lowes and a new similar freezer to be delivered Monday. Desperate people do desperate things.

OK freezer shows up and life is good again. I like lowes for the 10% veteran discount which Home Depot also offers. The last freezer was when a Sears hardware was closing so I grabbed a floor model with a slight scratch for $500 marked down from $1,000. It replaced a 30 year old unit I figured was going to die. Here's the kicker.

The unit I just replaced:


The new unit:


The units are identical vertical freezers. The older one using different refrigerant draws 5.0 amps full load and the new unit draws 1.8 amps full load. I never would have thought and maybe I should read more of those energy star labels?

Earlier someone mentioned the Kill-A-Watt units which are pretty slick. I have a few, one new and in box but do you think I can find one? No clue where they might be. Anyway your generator needs remain the same, current times voltage will give a good idea of power in watts needed. On a bright note I now can find dry ice in Cleveland, Ohio on a Sunday.

Ron

 

Interesting that Kenmore upright freezer, with that low a current draw it seems like it could be an Inverter type. Recently i went looking for that type of freezer here in Australia. Did not appear to be avalable. So i Google that Kenmore freezer, but it apears google has banned me from accessing any information & stores that sell them in America.

 

Interesting that Kenmore upright freezer, with that low a current draw it seems like it could be an Inverter type. Recently i went looking for that type of freezer here in Australia. Did not appear to be avalable. So i Google that Kenmore freezer, but it apears google has banned me from accessing any information & stores that sell them in America.

I can share this much. Crawling behind the old unit which failed low and behold I found a schematic. Not the best or easiest picture I ever took.



Not much to it which is actually a good thing. The cold control (thermostat had failed. I jumpered it as a test and the thing started running fine. This unit has the 5.0 amp current draw.

The new unit I can't find a schematic for but at a glance it looks much like the old unit. Unlike the old it does have three settings of cold, colder and coldest and a button to set. I am not seeing anything like a main circuit board or motherboard so I can only venture a guess that it not "smart".

Edit: Alas while I do not see an inverter visible that I can decipher I did find a simple drawing. There is a large square called "Control Board" so it apparently has a brain. This is the part that when you need service the service tech says $400 please.

Ron

 

This is the generator that i am trying to buy....https://www.samsclub.com/p/wgen5300dfv-in-club-980249772/prod24521605?xid=plp_product_2

More than adequate generator. That will work fine. You won't be in the dark.

Ron

 

So in your part of the world when the lights go out in the dead of winter and the house gets cold, real cold real fast how do you stay warm in a freezing cold house?

A woolly hat, two comforters plus a Hollofil sleeping bag. The concrete slab may have stored some heat. Water was available from a nearby creek for flushing the toilet, but I had a couple of gallon milk jugs full of water in reserve, and a bucket I'd filled before the water system lost pressure. Fortunately, the water pipes in the attic (?!) don't split when frozen, as I'd learned from previous winters. I used the propane grille outside to cook a steak with french fries and grilled broccoli.
Back in my old family home (uninsulated wood frame on crawlspace over dirt), we had an Ashley airtight wood stove (plus a fireplace), seasoned fir and maple in the woodshed, a creek (and shallow well) for water, Coleman camping stove, and my attic bedroom was unheated anyway. But it does not get as cold here on the Wet Coast as it does in central North America.

I wonder if the lower current rating of the new freezer translates to significantly lower energy consumption. Maybe the duty cycle is higher (or the insulation is better)?

 

I wonder if the lower current rating of the new freezer translates to significantly lower energy consumption. Maybe the duty cycle is higher (or the insulation is better)?

Well having just played the freezer game I can share the following. The 7 year old Kenmore would when set midway on a rotating cold dial would sit at -20 F and cycle. The new one not as cold.



The whole plot won't fit but it's a 12 hour plot after I repaired the old unit. This is the 115 Volt 5.0 amp model. The defrost heater cycles fine and coldest is a little over -20 warmest is -5. Now the new freezer which is also 20 cubic feet but 115 VAC and 1.5 amps.





The second image is incorrectly labeled. It's the new not old freezer. Sheese! I can't get a label correct.

On the coldest setting about -10 and it cycles to about -5 F so the newer more efficient freezer does not get as cold but at 1.5 amps verse 5.0 amps uses much less power. Data logging was done using one of these which during summers I use in a gun safe so I know humidity and when to recharge my desiccant packets.

Ron

 

Hi folks. Hope all is well.
I am trying to buy a power generator to power my fridge etc in case of a power outage.

Before I do that, I need to first find how much watts my fridge needs to run on.
The fridge manual says that the fridge uses 531KWh per year. ( That is the only info that they provided )

I found that the fridge uses 1451.79 watts per day ( 531 KWh / 365 days).
Then I found that 1451.79 / 24 hours = 60.61 Watts

Is it okay to assume that the fridge uses on average 60.61 Watts of power every hour that it is connected to the power generator?

Thanks for the replies!

There must be a power-rating plate on the fridge- likely on the compressor motor itself, as it is the main draw of current.

 

Interesting. Looks like the duty cycle is similar, so that is a huge improvement in efficiency. I wouldn't have guessed there was so much room for improvement, but, I only passed that thermodynamics course because the prof wasn't allowed to fail everyone.

 

There must be a power-rating plate on the fridge- likely on the compressor motor itself, as it is the main draw of current.

Post #23 I posted a few. One for my old freezer and one for my new. They are both 20 cubic foot freezers. Post #28 reflects at least a 12 hour chart of each with doors remaining closed. The old unit less a control board at 120 VAC draws 5.0 amps and easily pulls down to -20 F while the new unit has a control board, draws 1.5 Amps at 120 VAC and at the coldest setting pulls down to about -10 F. Older unit verse new uses different refringent. That's about it.

Ron

 

Interesting. Looks like the duty cycle is similar, so that is a huge improvement in efficiency. I wouldn't have guessed there was so much room for improvement, but, I only passed that thermodynamics course because the prof wasn't allowed to fail everyone.

Yes, while not making as cold 1.5 amps verse 5.0 amps is a big improvement. Once I got into what makes them tick it got pretty interesting. Then too almost 9 years into retirement just about anything is interesting. Hell, I have conversations with my dogs.

Ron

 

To find out the actual wattage of your refrigerator, you need to use a power meter.

 

To select the correct size generator, you decide if both refrigerator and freezer are to start at the same time.