Some brief notes about increasing efficiency of kerosene-electric refrigerator
I did this while working at Kibosho Girls Secondary School in Moshi, Tanzania 1994-95. The relatively well-equipped school had mains electricity, but mains electricity was both rationed out (because of draught in the hydroelectric area) and generally undependable. So the refrigerator I got from SVS, who was my employer, could be run on both mains electricity and kerosene. Kerosene is not a renewable resource, but until solar systems are more affordable, they can be useful.
This kind of refrigerator is called an absorption refrigerator and works quietly without any compressor. One part of the tubing is heated and this makes the frigerator cold (and freezer =-18 ° C!) I won't bother to try to explain how that works (but it does).
The heat can come from an electric resistance element (12- 240 V) or from a wick kerosene burner of the same type as a kerosene lamp. For a burning process to work, you must allow the burned gases to go out somewhere and they take a lot of heat with them. But if you close a chimney for example, you'll get smoke but no fire.
An electric heater doesn't need a chimney. I noticed that a lot of hot air passed through the kerosene chimney while i was running on electricity. I figured that I ought to be able to increase the efficiency by plugging it up while running on electricity.
I set up a digital meter to measure the on-off cycles (and voltage which could vary from 170 to 250 V) during the night when no one opens the fridge. By plugging the kerosene chimney thru the hotelement I found that the fridge could use 10% less power and maintain a few degrees colder at the same time. (This also meant not unnecesarily raising the kitchen temperature) (but that can also be used: I used to dry fruit on the updraft from the fridge).
I plugged the chimney with paper, with no problem. But if you are in a wooden house maybe you should choose something that can't burn. Don't forget to unplug the chimney when running on kerosene/parafin!!
I don't sell refrigerators etc. If you want more info about practical living with them, mail me: Jeff Forssell
Otherwise for more information about them you should porbably do a search on Internet. These links will probably go out-of-date soon:
Some technical specifications for the SIBIR series of refrigerators. One manufacturer of refrigerator/freezers: electrolux
© Jeff Forssell karabai.html Created 2001; Last uppdate
2002-01