LESLIE: Greg in Colorado Springs, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
GREG: I have an outside garage refrigerator …
TOM: OK.
GREG: … and when it’s cold outside – obviously, below freezing – it freezes everything inside the refrigerator.
TOM: So you want to know how to warm up your refrigerator, huh? (Leslie chuckles)
GREG: Well, not necessarily (Tom chuckles) but if there’s a quick-fix, maybe.
TOM: Well, there’s not a quick fix. The problem here is with the refrigeration cycle. Now a normal refrigerator is not designed to work in extreme temperatures; either extreme hot or extreme cold. A refrigerator is designed to work in room temperature. And when you get super-hot and super-cold, it does odd things like freeze. There are, however, special appliances that are designed to work in an unheated or unconditioned space; probably the most famous of which are made by the Whirlpool company under the brand name Gladiator.
There are two products: there’s the Chillerator and the Freezerator convertible refrigerator/freezer. The Chillerator is just a garage refrigerator and the Freezerator basically gives you two compartments that are actually reversible; one can be the refrigerator and one can be the freezer or you could flip them. They’re not inexpensive but they do work and they do work very well and they’re extremely well-made.
GREG: Well, I appreciate that, [so that you can’t like leave a light bulb on them or anything like that. That makes sense.] (ph)
TOM: No, because you’re dealing with an appliance that’s just not designed to work in an unconditioned space, even though we know many of us have refrigerators in our garages that are sort of our old refrigerators, they’re just not designed to work there. The refrigeration cycle isn’t cut out for it.
GREG: I appreciate your help and thanks for taking my call.
TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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