Leaving fridge at home running?

[Jgeorger1]

Snowbirding to Florida for 5 months. 2011 vintage fridge at home.Would you empty it and turn it off for the energy saving?

[rockhillmanor]

Mocoondo wrote:
Fridge off and leave the doors propped open. If your fridge fails while gone for an extended period, you will return home to find the house uninhabitable due to a stench that will knock an elephant on its ass.

X10

[Mocoondo]

Fridge off and leave the doors propped open. If your fridge fails while gone for an extended period, you will return home to find the house uninhabitable due to a stench that will knock an elephant on its ass.

[rockhillmanor]

dahkota wrote:
Twice (in five years) when we had a sticks and bricks, our power went out while we were gone for an extended time. It probably went out more than that but those two times, it went out for days. We would have never known had we not had relatives down the street.

Put some ice cubes in a zip lock baggie. If the power goes out the ice cubes will melt. Yes when the power goes back on the melted cubes will refreeze but not in their original cube shape!!:B

If those bagged ice cubes have melted, that way you will KNOW the power went off, and long enough to spoil your food in the fridge.

IMHO this is must do for me in the MH fridge. CG power is so unpredictable. It could have gone down while you were gone from the R RV and then come back on, And you wouldn't know it when you got back that it had been off long enough to maybe make you sick from eating food that had not been kept cold at the safe temperature level.

[2gypsies1]

We asked an appliance store once and we were told that it's better for the refrigerator to be left on. Keep some cartons of soft drinks or bottles of water in it so the refrig has something to zero in on to keep cold.

[BarbaraOK]

Maybe this should be in the Snowbird forum instead of the FullTiming forum? Fulltimers have their fridges with them all of the time, so nothing to turn off.

[imgoin4it]

We nearly empty the home refrigerator and still leave it on, but we make sure everything left in is packaged in such a way (use Tupper ware etc) so that if the refer goes off for any reason it is not ruined by spoiled food. We had the refer quit one time and everything was spoiled. But no smell and we had it repaired and went on with living.

[imgoin4it]

We nearly empty the home refrigerator and still leave it on, but we make sure everything left if is packaged in such a way (use Tupper ware etc) so that if the refer goes off for any reason it is not ruined by spoiled food. We had the refer quit quit one time and everything was spoiled. But no smell and we had it repaired and went on with living.

[Dave_E]

Empty the refer and freezer and leave doors open, turn heat down to 50, turn water off at the curb and drain system, leave water in water heater, put vegetable oil in drains to keep them from drying out, turn off most circuit breakers in box. We are gone about six months.

[dahkota]

Twice (in five years) when we had a sticks and bricks, our power went out while we were gone for an extended time. It probably went out more than that but those two times, it went out for days. We would have never known had we not had relatives down the street. After that, we always mostly emptied it but we left it running. It wasn't as if we lived in the middle of nowhere, either - it was a suburb of DC. It just seemed as if our extended vacations attracted storms.

[Fizz]

If you do leave your fridge on unatended it could go off for days without you knowing.

What to do?
In the freezer we keep an ice cube in a small dish. If we find a small frozen puddle we know the fridge was off for a long while. If the cube has rounded edges we know it was starting to thaw before power came back on.

[rockhillmanor]

Fridge off, empty, scrubbed down, door open AND something put in place to make SURE the door doesn't close.

Makes a difference where you are from. Up North bad winters power failures during snow storms happens. You are not there to know or know how long it was off.

I've been in many power failures and I am hear to tell you 'just keeping the door closed' does NOT keep your fridge temps at a safe level after a day. It does not prevent food from spoiling or defrosting.

I wouldn't even think of leaving food in a fridge while gone that length of time. Nor would I leave it on empty.

[rockhillmanor]

.

[time2roll]

I turn mine off if we are gone three weeks. Great opportunity to give it a scrub down and toss the old condiments. Let it sit open.

[monkey44]

dons2346 wrote:
We have to much frozen shrimp and crab to empty our refers. I can afford 10-12 bux a month to keep them running

How do you know it did not lose power a time or two, thaw, and re-freeze?

Answer:: Freeze a cup of water, put a nickel on top of the ice. If you return and find the nickel at the bottom of the cup, you know it thawed at least once.