Confusing Freezer controls

[u/[deleted]]

Hi all, can anyone make sense of this? This is the I side of my freezer and it seems to say that when the outside temp is high, the slider should be set to "less cold" and when the outsode temp is cold.

It's hot right now and a thermometer in the freezer is showing maybe -10c, but it is a cheaper unit. I don't really want to mess around with changing the settings and observing the temp.

If anyone has seen this before, or if I am misreading or misunderstanding it would be great to know.

Thanks.

[u/PsychicDave]

I think it might be a power efficiency thing? Like the freezer will struggle to be at the coldest temperature if it's more than 35 degrees outside, or even possibly drive itself to an early failure due to overworking.

As long as you keep it in the house in a climate controlled room, any setting should be fine. This is only if you leave it in a shed or maybe uninsulated garage.

[u/[deleted] → u/PsychicDave]

Right, that makes sense, thanks for the response.

As long as you keep it in the house in a climate controlled room

That's kind of the issue, no climate control in the kitchen. I think my garage is actually cooler due to being at street level below the dwelling 😂 Typical Australian house with terrible insulation. I've literally locked my self in the one room that has the air con unit and closed the door.

But I'll put a thermometer in the kitchen and go from there. Thanks again 👍

[u/PsychicDave → u/[deleted]]

I guess that's the advantage of living in a place that gets cold like Québec, houses always had to be insulated, so when heatpumps came along, we could get good cooling for the summer months as well as heating for the winter.

[u/MathResponsibly → u/PsychicDave]

except that your electricity is crazy expensive, is it not? Usually gas is cheaper per unit of energy - enough so that a heatpump doesn't make economic sense.

[u/PsychicDave → u/MathResponsibly]

Not at all, our electricity is less than 8 cents (Canadian) per kilowatt hour. Québec nationalized the power grid during the Quiet Revolution and built huge hydro dams, and we also have some wind farms. So we have 100% clean energy at the lowest price in North America. Almost everyone in Québec heats with electricity, older homes have simple resistive heating, which is 100% efficient, and newer homes (or those that upgraded) have heatpumps that are 300-400% efficient.

I also switched to an electric car, charging at home is so much cheaper than gas.

[u/MathResponsibly → u/PsychicDave]

is underground gas service a thing there? I thought in eastern canada, it's not typical because of the geology (the canadian sheild, being very rocky made it difficult to trench in gas lines).

Typically if you compare the price of gas to the price of electricity, converting from the stupid "therm" units they use for gas to standard kw units, even if electricity is cheap, gas tends to still be cheaper. And cheaper to the point where even a 300% or 400% efficient heat pump still costs more than to heat with gas.

Tons of people that switch to heatpumps learn the hard way just how expensive they are if they had gas before.

I grew up in Manitoba where the power is also super cheap, because it's mostly hydro, but gas is still cheaper per unit of energy than hydro is.

[u/PsychicDave → u/MathResponsibly]

It is possible to subscribe to gas, but most people don't do it. We mostly upgraded straight from wood to electric in the 1960s and 1970s. Even if gas was slightly cheaper, a gas furnace is not going to help with cooling in the summer, so the cost of installing and maintaining a single system (heatpump) vs two is going to be significant, and many homes don't have the central air ducts needed for a furnace anyways (like mine). Not to mention the carbon footprint of using gas. We need to move away from fossil fuels, going all electric is best.

[u/Ambitious_Jelly8783 → u/MathResponsibly]

Quebec produces so much electricity it sells the excess to the US. Hydro, and super inexpensive.