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I am living in a tropical country right now, it gets pretty hot (~45 °C) in here.

Now, I have single room home which has my desktop & a refrigerator. As obvious, in order to make ice in high ambient temperature the fridge has to work extra hard, resulting in 7-8 °C increase in temperature (yes!).

I have positioned the fridge in a corner with about 10 inches of free-margin for plenty of air flow. The problem is that room's air, objects are permanently hot now days. I touch them and they always feel hot-warm. Opening windows at night cools air but the objects are staying hot.

Can I possibly make something that avert/deflect heat from fridge's back & side panels & direct it straight through and out of the window?

I am especially worried high temperaure might compromise my computer & router.

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  • I think what you're looking for is a fan. Not sure this warrants a hack of any sort. – briantist Jun 7 '15 at 16:47
  • Even in moderate climates, a refrigerator can make a room stifling. Be sure the device can operate as efficiently as possible, e.g. check that door gaskets seal well, keep cooling coils clean and interior defrosted. You're pumping heat from the interior of the fridge to the outside, so try to keep heat from entering, perhaps adding more insulation. – DrMoishe Pippik Jun 8 '15 at 0:49
  • If the ambient temperature reaches 45C regularly, I don't think the room would cool down much even without the refrigerator there at all. – TIO Begs Jun 12 '15 at 18:07
  • Well, as I guess A/C is out of the picture, I don't see a better solution than a fan and maybe some pipes to "drive" the air flow out. But you won't get much out of this, the biggest issue is not the fridge, it's the temperature where you live. My gosh 45°C I would run out of there :-) – Laurent S. Jun 18 '15 at 13:16
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I've built temporary ducting using cardboard and duct tape. Just create a duct from your exhaust vent to the window. For extra cooling add a fan to blow air away from the fridge.

This may or may not be possible depending on where the fridge and window are located.

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The question is: Do you need a freezer? Many people can live without one. Instead of using ice from a freezer, you can use cold water from the fridge. Since the fridge is only at about 4C, and not -18C as the freezer, you get less heat transfer whence less heat produced.

In general, the smaller the fridge area to the outside, the better for efficiency (with 0 being the best). Actually, the old fridges with the freezer inside the fridge were better in this sense, since you didn't have any heat leakage from the freezer, just from the fridge.

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