Fridge in the garage in the winter

[RichC]

Is there any way to keep the contents of a garage fridge from freezing in the winter in the colder states?

[kinnasst]

Am I correct in assuming that heating the garage and/or moving the fridge inside are not options?

Fridges are designed to keep the contents below ambient temperature, not the other way around. The link below talks using a ceramic heater to help maintain tempetature in a freezer above ambient temperature. The author lives in Oregon.

http://www.oregonbrewcrew.com/freezer/freezer.html

Good luck.

[RichC]

Well, I don't have a fridge in the garage, but I'm trying to look at all my options. I'm running out of basement space and I'm trying to see what my options are for using a fridge in the garage. Thanks for the link!

[Mill Rat]

If this fridge is a typical fridge-freeze combo, there's only one temperature control (in the fridge), and the freezer temp is maintained by adjusting a passage between thw two compartments. If you put the fridge in a cooler location, the fridge will maintain temp, but with the compressor operating less frequently, the freeze may well thaw out. Once the ambient gets below the fridge temperature setting, the inside of both comparments will adjust to ambient in a day or two. If it's frozen around the fridge, its contents will be also. If you want to make that work, you might also need a thermostatically-controlled heater in there. Just make you temperature adjustments carefully, you don't want the two fighting each other. Only the electric utility wins then.

BTW, where in western NY are you? My wife has relatives in Cattaraugus, Erie, and Niagara counties.

[Jared]

I I dismantled my light switch so the light stays on all the time. The heat from the light bulb is just enough to keep things from freezing. One word of caution would be to make sure any food or beer that is light sensitive out of harms way from the light.

[danno]

I have a temp controller that I hook up to a 500 watt heater. works great, although if you have any spills, clean them up...

I unplug the fridge, and make sure you don't have anything you really need to keep in the freezer...

[RichC]

Originally posted by Mill Rat
BTW, where in western NY are you? My wife has relatives in Cattaraugus, Erie, and Niagara counties.

I live NE of Rochester, in Monroe county.

And thanks everyone for the ideas. It gives me some things to think about.

[dparsons]

If the garage is attached to your house, you might consider insulating it. Heat from the house will keep the garage warmer and you'll lose less heat.

[RichC]

Two sides of the garage are insulated, I'm not sure about the 3rd. There's drywall but I don't know whats under it. It does stay warmer than outside, but it gets pretty cold here. We have at least a couple weeks where we can expect the weather to dip down to 0 or below at night, and not get above 20 during the day.

[Mill Rat]

If you drop a couple of bucks at the local hardware, you can get a thermometer to hang on a nail in the garage that will let you know exactly how cold it is.

[PCaravan]

I use this:

http://www.williamsbrewing.com/BREWER_S_EDGE_SPACE_HEATER_P518.cfm

It's hooked up to a thermostat that I got at a hardware store that looks a lot like the thermostats sold at homebrew store but cheaper. Works great.

I don't live in a "cold weather state" but it does get colder here than what you'd want to ferment beer at.

[zoom6zoom]

Originally posted by RichC
I live NE of Rochester, in Monroe county.

And thanks everyone for the ideas. It gives me some things to think about.

Mill Rat, I also have a number of relatives in that area - Olean, Portville, Bolivar, and (formerly) Knapps Creek. My dad met my mom there when he attended St. Bonaventure.