Advice please: need a new refrigerator

[Xenopus]

We have a 1980s fridge which is now leaking water from some unknown source. Has anyone researched energy-efficient fridges? Any and all advice gratefully received.

[white_stone]

We had a frost free that seemed to run constantly. Sold it and temporarily used a little dorm fridge. Bought a small chest freezer. Lucked on a deal for a manual defrost refrigerator that was pretty ratted out but works great, $25. (Hey, it even came with a Terrorist Hunting Permit stuck on the side - gotta love it!) Our electric bill dropped dramatically. On cool days, when we do not have to run A/C our meter reads from as low as 4 to 8 Kilowatts a day.

Last month we found another manual defrost refrigerator, a GE, in very good condition, too. We snapped it up for $100. It took me about a week to learn where to set the thermostat to prevent everything from freezing but now that I got that right, it works like a charm.

We will not toss the one with the sticker, you never know.

Oh, the freezer is my best friend. I love it. Got it in Feb and only needed to defrosted it once and that was last week.

Craigslist is my shopping center!

Regards,
white stone

[PseudoPhil]

Run a "refrigerator" on one tenth of a kilowatt hour per day:

http://mtbest.net/chest_fridge.pdf

This guy added an external thermostatic controller to a chest freezer in order to operate it as a refrigerator.

He claims it's 10 to 20 times more efficient than the average refrigerator.

[Xenopus]

Run a "refrigerator" on one tenth of a kilowatt hour per day:

http://mtbest.net/chest_fridge.pdf

This guy added an external thermostatic controller to a chest freezer in order to operate it as a refrigerator.

He claims it's 10 to 20 times more efficient than the average refrigerator.

Yes, I've heard that before. Cold air sinks. But I think I'm a little old and short to be dangling over the edge on my tummy whenever I want to get at the milk.

[HungryRaven]

My family used to keep milk cold by their homemade fridge.  A cement block hut built over a cold stream and the stream diverted to run through a cement trough.  Then the food was kept in the trough. 

[BigFatherA]

If you have lots of $$$ buy a sunfrost.

Otherwise, get an energy star rated fridge and wrap it in 2" of styrofoam (but not on the coils).