To turn my fridge off overnight?

[Fridgerson]

For various complicated and boring reasons, I am living with generator power only for the next few weeks.

The generator fuel tank won’t support it staying on all night. I’d have to get up every 5-6 hours to fill it.
The fridge is an expensive one and I don’t want to break it.

Do I…

Turn fridge off overnight then back on in the morning? (YABU)

or

Turn it off completely and live hand to mouth going to the shops every day? (YANBU)

Or any other solutions I may not have thought of! Thank you!

I would also go for turning it off completely, rather than on and off if it's an on-going problem. I would store outside in plastic lidded boxes if you have some, or in the car boot or a shed. Or a neighbour's freezer if they have space (but mine is full of turkey and other delights, so they may not).

Milk and meat, plus existing frozen stuff, are going to be the main issue, but with a bit of creative meal planning you should be OK.

https://www.themudhome.com/the-zeer-pot-fridge.html

You could consider going completely electricity free especially given its currently winter here in the UK but it would mean a bit of DIY if you were up for it.

What would happen if you left it on but didn’t go out to refill the generator until morning, so presumably 8 or so hours re? Wouldn’t that just mean the fridge was without power for 2-3 hours? This would surely be better than leaving it switched off all night, a few hours with door closed would be fine.

I think if you put it outside in a sealed box you'll have more of an issue with it freezing than getting too warm!

actually @Fridgerson this sounds like the best and easiest solution to be honest!!

Agree with this. We often have power cuts so our fridge freezer can be off for a few hours - never been a problem.

If this is likely to be a regular thing or long term what about a gas camping/caravan fridge if you have the spare cash that it.

Or look into a jackery generator can be recharged by solar on those nicer days or use your petrol generator to charge it during the day. It would power your fridge freezer and over things overnight.

Yes!

The question here is really just “do I need to turn something off so it doesn’t get turned off?”.

Just let it get turned off!

The average fridge is around 5 celsius, so if the outdoor conditions are this cold or lower, you can just box them up and put them outside until the morning. I'd consider what @Mycatmyworld said though about it using some power to get down to temperature again.

In that case I would switch it off overnight and ensure I never opened the door after it was switched off. A modern fridge should be able to maintain it's cold temperature inside for several hours, they're well insulated to minimise power use.

Or, as you suggested yourself, "turn it off completely and live hand to mouth going to the shops every day". Although I don't think you'll need to live hand to mouth! Just give a bit more thought to what you're eating. Most veg don't need refrigeration, so drop the salads and tuck into potatoes, broccoli, carrots, onions, cabbage instead. Cheese will be fine outside a fridge for days. The only risky stuff is meat and fish, so buy and eat the same day. Use tinned and jarred foods - beans on toast, soups, that sort of thing. Take your tea and coffee black, or at least buy your milk in smaller amounts so that you use it well before it has a chance to go off.

Living fridgeless for a few weeks is entirely do-able with a bit of planning (especially in this weather).

Get a generator with a larger capacity fuel
tank?

Why would you have to live hand to mouth going to the shops everyday?

surely it can’t be much more expensive than running a fridge and filling it?

I’d be inclined to switch it off completely. Maybe get ice to keep it cool and open it as little as possible to keep things fresh.

Yes that’s a good idea!

Probably better for the fridge and your nerves to switch it off.

A well-insulated storage box (if you can surround it in a duvet, or newspaper/cardboard, even polystyrene that will help) with either cold blocks or bags of ice (very cheap from the supermarket) should be fine - if you do use ice, you'll be able to see from that if it's warming up too quickly, but there should not be a problem in winter.

That won't replace a freezer, but an ice-box will serve as a fridge substitute.

A few hrs, even 8 hrs off it would still be better to just leave everything in the fridge over night and put it in a cool box. It’s already in a cool box - the fridge! And it’s better insulated than your cool box.

Good fridges will stay cold inside when off for a good while provided you don’t open the door, especially if the room it’s in is cool (which I presume it will be).

Get a cheap max/min thermometer and try it out one night?

@CranfordScones I'm genuinely curious how you manage in the warmer months for milk, yoghurts etc?

It potentially won’t do the fridge systems much good to be switched on and off that often, and may reduce its overall life. Whether that’s in a material way or a theoretical way will depend on the details of the design of your fridge and the components. It’s unlikely to be easy to find out.

Cold boxes are mighty effective things if used sensibly. Key bit is to keep them shut as much as possible. Bagged ice from the supermarket will keep one cool for a reasonable time. Especially if you take it to the supermarket and fill it in the carpark so everything goes in cold. If you’re a regular user of a splash of milk then buy it in single pints and use one at a time and keep it out rather than opening the box a lot.

(and for the next while crate in the shade in the garden will do you fine!).

What about a camping fridge box type of thing? You can run them on a car sized battery, that might do it temporarily

Do you live with other people?

How about staggering sleep times? One goes to bed late and tops up the generator before sleeping. The other gets up early and fills the generator.

Really? Where do you store meat?
And milk?

Over Christmas we had a houseful-we put some cool bags on the table in the garden and used them for veg and other overflow things. Zipped them up at night. Just kept them topped up with ice. Do it every year-it's fine, it is very cold now and meant to stay cold for the foreseeable (Berkshire)

It must just be a tiny temporary generator? Ours ran for ages on a tank of fuel! I’d fill it up last thing at night, leave the fridge on, and refill the tank as soon as you get up.

My dad's fridge is run off a generator and he always does this. Fridges are pretty well insulated so it will keep a lot of the cold in until morning. Especially in winter.

I'd suggest getting a thermometer and using the outdoors at this time of year. You can use a bucket of water to keep things like milk cold. The specific heat capacity of water is huge and the water comes out of the tap really cold this time of year, so you'd be able to maintain a stable coldish temp quite well over the next few weeks/months at least. I would shop differently, maybe every 3 days or so, and not buy tonnes of fresh meat. Bacon keeps well or use shelf stable meat like chorizo and tuna.

My mum tells me this is how they did things before they could save up for a fridge, and I've used it during renovations.

The food in your fridge would be fine in a switched off fridge for a few hours, but it'll use a lot more of your generator fuel to be burning it down to nothing every night than using the outdoors to keep things cool.