Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 09:56:02 -0700
Reply-To: Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Pulled out my stock fridge - now my faucet doesn't work...??
In-Reply-To: <200909081546.n88FkEa82327@sbw.org>
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The results are in calories. Your feet's skin is very sensitive to cold
air, that's part of what the nerve endings down there do for a living. But
the amount of "cold" lost is really tiny. Besides chilled toesies, the
reason we think that we've lost a lot of "cold" when the door is opened
frequently is we hear the reefer's compressor kick in, but it is
responding only to the temperature of the air within the reefer. The food
items will have lost almost no heat whatsoever.
It takes a pretty long exposure to warm air to raise the temp of a can of
beer even a couple degrees. Campers with little to do can try the
following Fun Experiments in the privacy of their van.
Experiment 1: Take a bottle of water and stick a thermometer in it. Put
it, and a bunch of other representative food and beverage items in the
refrigerator. Chill everything down for, say, overnight. Check the chilled
temperature of the water while cooling your toes. Close the door. Open the
door and cool your toes. Close the door. Open the door and cool your toes.
Close the door. Do this for maybe 10 times. Check the temperature of the
water. Wait 10 minutes and check again.
Experiment 2: Remove a beer from the reefer and open it -- do not drink
the beer! -- stick a thermometer into the beer and record the chilled
temperature Then set the beer on a tabletop in a location with still air.
Not in the sun. Note how long it takes for the beer to come up 5 degrees.
You may, at this point, drink the beer, but not before recording the
ambient temperature so we can normalize the results before sharing them
with the rest of the class, and not before removing the thermometer, to
avoid choking accidents. Probably a good idea to also note the volume of
beer and whether it was in a glass or aluminum container. If it was a
particularly large volume of beer, such as a growler, then also record the
percentage of alcohol in that beer so we can see whether you will need
help getting to bed or not.
--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
Bend, OR
KG6RCR
On 9/8/2009 8:46 AM Steve Williams wrote:
> At 08:22 AM 9/8/2009, Rocket J Squirrel wrote:
>> ... "How much "cold" is lost when the door is opened?" section of
>> this page might be of interest ...
>
> I read that several times over without understanding what it was
> trying to say. Water vapor? Calories?
>
> My bare feet find it hard to believe it's an insignificant loss when
> I open a front-opening fridge.
>
> (I do keep a big jug of water in my Engel when it's not full. I see
> that as another battery.)
>