In the summer the warm exhaust from the fridge gets dumped into the kitchen along with heat from cooking. Then the cooling system has to work harder, or if there is no cooling system it just means less comfort and fans running more.
So I have to ask, why don’t refrigerators have a duct so the warm air can be vented outside in the summer?
In the winter I actually adjust the fridge temp to be colder so food lasts longer because the output is beneficial anyway.
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Wouldn’t really make much difference, see the Technology Connections video, I think he even addresses this
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If you had an exhaust vent, you’d need an intake, or else you’d be exhausting cooled interior air, which would then be mad up with exterior air intrusion somewhere (see Technology Connections video on portable air conditioners. Single hose units have the same issue)
Basically, the fridge doesn’t make much difference to the internal heat load of a house. The air exchanged when a person leaves/returns is probably orders of magnitude greater influence, or even using a few incandescent light bulbs.
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shouldn’t the refrigerator be sealed so external heat doesn’t affect it? Maybe im misinformed on how that works
It’s just a heat pump. Essentially, and without going into how, heat is pumped out of the insulated box of the refrigerator and dumped into the space outside that box i.e. your kitchen. The house’s air conditioner does essentially the same thing on a larger scale, pumping heat outside your house. Heat pumps can work in reverse too for warming your house. The OP is concerned that waste heat from a refrigerator needs to be handled by the house AC and feels that it might be more efficient to pump that heat directly outside the house.
