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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...??
Comments: To: Steve Williams <sbw@SBW.ORG>
In-Reply-To:  <200909081546.n88FkEa82327@sbw.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

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.) >


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