Can I put my fridge right next to my stove?

September 6, 2004 1:59 PM

Is there anything wrong with moving my refrigerator right next to my stove? Gas stove, small kitchen, empty space between the stove and fridge. Will pushing them together affect the performance of either one? Mostly I just don't want proximity to the the stove to make the refrigerator work harder.
posted by bendy to home & garden (12 comments total)

I would be concerned about clearance for the fridge door to open as well as the proximity of the (probably plastic) fridge handle to the open flame even moreso than the hot vs. cold issue. My stove and fridge both seem so well insulated that I can't feel any heat along the side of either one.

But perhaps you could built a little storage unit into the space between the two, and make this all moot.
posted by bcwinters at 2:12 PM on September 6, 2004

My tiny kitchen features stove and fridge butted up against one another - I've never experienced a problem, and it doesn't seem like the fridge has to work harder that it otherwise would. It certainly doesn't make any more noise.

Although it should be noted that I don't use the oven all that frequently.
posted by aladfar at 3:00 PM on September 6, 2004

Lived in my last apartment for two years. Stove and fridge were right next to each other, and both were in very frequent use. I didn't notice, for a second, any problem with either appliance. You should be all set!
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 3:04 PM on September 6, 2004

OK, thanks all. I keep going back to the Steven Wright joke about having a humidifier and a dehumidifier and putting them in the same room to battle it out. But it sounds like it won't be an issue - or else the kitchen will maintain some perfect median temperature...

bcwinters, I'm not concerned about the clearance issue, since the fridge only opens halfway anyway, due to thwacking into the countertop across from it!
posted by bendy at 3:24 PM on September 6, 2004

My parents house has the same stove and fridge next to each other for 20 years, never had a problem with it.
posted by Mick at 3:28 PM on September 6, 2004

They are next to each other in my kitchen too. Seems okay to me.
posted by konolia at 4:15 PM on September 6, 2004

If the heat radiated by the stove makes its way to the condenser (the pipes on the back of the refrigerator), your refrigerator will indeed need to "work harder" (it would probably be more correct to say that the compressor's duty cycle would increase). This is a scientific fact.

The magnitude of the increase is the question. My SWAG is that it'll set you back two or three dollars per month in energy costs.
posted by Kwantsar at 5:25 PM on September 6, 2004

Kwantsar is probably right, to some degree, but just because the cost is only going to be a few dollars a month doesn't mean that it's not a dumb idea. Most people aren't intimate enough with their fridge and oven to know that they are being overworked, but in a situation where they are next to each other, this will be the case at times. Efficiency is very important, and this kind of inefficiency and attention only to the bottom line is why we have a problem in this world with carbon pollution.

As an aside - cleaning the dust off of your condenser coils twice a month will lower your annual energy bill by 30-40 dollars. Is that a lot of money? Not really. But every little bit of efficiency counts when you are talking about carbon pollution and global warming. Let's be proactive here!
posted by crazy finger at 8:37 PM on September 6, 2004

crazy finger - stupid question for the untechnically minded like me - where are the condensor coils?
posted by penguin pie at 5:23 AM on September 7, 2004

You get a lot of grease splatter on the side of the refrigerator, which is usually a bright white shiny surface. If you don't keep it clean, it gets noticeably gross.
posted by smackfu at 8:08 AM on September 7, 2004

The condenser coils are the cooling fins on the back of the fridge.
posted by trharlan at 8:30 AM on September 7, 2004

do you need to turn off the fridge before cleaning the condenser coils?
posted by papercake at 12:32 PM on September 7, 2004