Fridges, freezers, and fridge-freezers are all designed to operate within specific temperature ranges (climates). If you place one in a kitchen, or in a separate room inside your house, it’s likely that it will operate as intended. However, it’s not advisable to place a refrigeration appliance next to a heat source such as a radiator or a cooker – or even in strong direct sunlight).
If you place one in an outside building such as a shed or garage you may be putting it into temperature ranges that fall outside the designed limits. You could then experience problems such as not working properly or completely malfunctioning.
So think carefully before installing a refrigeration appliance in a garage or outbuilding if the temperature inside is likely to get much higher or much lower than that of its stated climate class. If you buy any refrigeration appliance in the UK it is highly likely to be only designed to work in a kitchen or utility room. (e.g. Freezer defrosted: Can you put a fridge freezer in a garage?)
All fridges, freezers, and fridge freezers should have a climate class printed on their rating plate (or maybe in the instruction book). This class indicates the minimum and maximum temperatures that the appliance is suitable to work in. The most common climate classes sold in the UK are listed in the form below. (where is the serial number on a fridge or freezer?)
NOTE: Your appliance may not necessarily use the phrase “climate class”, on my freezer the writing is very small and it just says “class SN”. I would expect most refrigeration appliances in the UK would be climate class SN but check your rating plate.
| Climate Class | Min Temperature | Max Temperature |
|---|---|---|
| N | 16 ° | 32 ° |
| SN | 10 ° | 32 ° |
| ST | 18 ° | 38 ° |
| T | 18 ° | 43 ° |
The above climate classes stand for – N = Temperate climate, SN = Extended Temperate climate, ST = Sub Tropical, T = Tropical.
Spares
Spares4Appliances is a spares company run by repair engineers who understand all about spare parts for appliances.
Could moving thermostat bulb out of the inside of a fridge into small box with low wattage lamp help in someway.
Or swop out a freezer thermostat for my fridge one?
This should answer some queries. Generally Fridge freezer combi’s are controlled by a single thermostat in the fridge which keeps it at around 4 degrees. If the outside air temperature falls below 4 degrees the fridge will not raise in temperature therefore the thermostat will not switch the compressor on so the freezer temperature will start to rise. If the cold spell continues the freezer contents will be defrosted. Beko frost free (not static) have electronic sensors in the freezer that sense that the freezer temperature is rising and switch on the compressor regardless of the fridge thermostat setting. Stand alone freezers operate at around -20 degrees so their thermostat is unaffected by north European cold snaps and in the unlikely event the temperature fell below -20 then why would you need a freezer!!
About climate class. N class is considered normal temperature, 16 – 32 I believe,- but surely everyone’s house is not constantly above 16 degrees? My house is usually warm but I don’t sleep with heating on overnight or leave the thermostat higher than 15 until the evening. Does this mean an N class freezer is unsuitable?
anna: They’ve always had these climate ranges and it’s never caused a problem until they decided to start making some fridge/freezers controlled by only one thermostat.
If it’s pretty cool, and the temperature drops overnight to below 16 degrees I wouldn’t expect any real problems, it’s usually when the temperature drops below that of the fridge inside (4 or 5 degrees) that the freezer stops getting cooled down because the fridge switches off.
It should only cause problems when these fridge-freezers are put in very cold places which stay cold for days at a time. Imagine one in a garage, during a prolonged cold temperature of around 1 or 2 degrees for a week. This would mean the fridge may not turn on for a week because it’s plenty cold enough, but because the freezer will also turn off, and it needs to keep temperatures down to -18 it could slowly defrost – especially when the freezer is opened to access frozen food or re-stock.
I have a norfrost chest freezer in my kitchen and a couple of times it has defrosted, i think that the biggest issue is not at the lowest temperature but at the highest operating temperature. If the room is sub zero and the freezer stops working then it will warm up the room temperature, still be sub zero. If the room temperate is as i believe in my case 14c then it will warm up to that tempurature. Assuming it takes a while to defrost, as long as the room tempurature during the day is above 16c and the freezer operates to cool it down , during the night it will not be operating and will slowly be defrosting until the room warms up and the freezer starts operating again. I think that the issue i am having is that even this time of year when the room is at about 14c then it is not cold enough for my central heating to be on all day and it is not warm enough for the freezer to be on all day and also it is also at a tempurature that the freezer defrosts at the most quickly.
I have fitted a freezer alarm and just keep an eye on it.
I think that a lot of people that have problems with defrosting and have new thermostates fitted as i did, are suffering from the same problem, the freezer is working corretly it is just that the room temperature is just too low for the freezer to operate.
If would seem very silly to be selling freezers that do not work when the room tempurature is 14-15c.
Great thread of comments and responses…….
This may have been raised/mentioned previously and I’ve missed it, however since my fridge has just stopped working I need some help….3yrs ago we purchased a frost free tall fridge and a frost free tall freezer. We researched the “Climate Class” and discovered that only freezers would operate at below 10 degC, all fridges sold in the UK wouldn’t operate below 10 degC. We placed both our new freezer and fridge in our garage, space is very limited in the kitchen and only have room for a small fridge and no freezer. The garage is unheated and remote from the house, so we understood we were taking a risk but had no alternative to increase our fridge capacity and have access to a freezer, which we need as we were expecting our first child.
The freezer even during the last 2 winters has operated perfectly, the fridge until this week did also. Over the last winters temperature here in rural Somerset regulary dropped to below -10 degC and stayed well below 10 degC for long periods.
It is now May and I understand Spring is late, and it has been cold, but not below 0 degC for long periods like the pervious winters, and the fridge has stopped working. When plugged in and switched on via the thermostate inside,the sound a fridge makes when it’s running happens (the compressor running, black thing at the back on the bottom??), but the inside temperture of the fridge doesn’t drop (chill). The compressor (if that is what it is) gets hot and continues to run, with no fall in the inside temperature of the fridge.
Now my questions;
1) Can I fix my fridge cheaply or should i buy another one?
2) If purchasing a new fridge, can I buy one to function in my garage? (and not have to replace it every 3yrs)
3) Extend my existing house or move house, to allow for room in the house for a larger fridge in the house? (a bit drastic!)
Thanks for staying with me but felt you need the background/info to be able answer and help.
Many thanks
D&H
The answers depend really on whether the breakdown is related to where the appliance is being used or not and there’s no way of telling without it being looked at. I have 2 freezers and a fridge in my garage which have worked fine for the last 6 years. The fault may just be an unrelated fault.
All that is needed to run a fridge or freezer in an unheated garage or shed is a “crankcase heater”. This is a heating element constructed like a belt. It is strapped around the compressor (AKA the motor or “pot”) To save power the heater is controlled by a thermostat. The object of the exercise is to prevent the refrigerant from becoming a liquid in the compressor as once this occurs the compressor is unlikely to start. These heaters are a rarity in the UK but in countries where large temperature changes occur they are fairly common.
Re Washerhelp, My answer is “Of course you can” but the proviso is that the fridge must have a crankcase heater fitted in case of cold weather
In general, domestic electrical products that are sold in the UK are IMHO “value engineered” to make the maximum amount of profit. This means that you never get a crankcase heater.
Thanks David. Haven’t seen them here, presumably because we don’t have such massive temperature drops. However, they wouldn’t fix the main problem of 1-stat controlled fridge-freezers defrosting when the temperature drops below freezing, which is more of a problem in the UK where temperatures in a garage drop enough to cause the stat to shut off even when the freezer still needs cooling.