The very first home refrigerator was invented in 1913.
Still, it would be years before the product would find its way into the homes of the American people and become the treasured appliance that we rely on today.
In fact, it was not until 1940 that the fridge-freezer combo was invented and eventually mass-produced.
In the time of the hunter-gatherers, people would hunt or collect food and consume it almost immediately. The cycle was endless.
With no way to safely store food, people needed to pursue meals regularly. Only once the need to hunt for food began to fade did we seek ways to keep food cool and fresh.
People began to pickle, smoke, and cure foods during this time. Natural ways to keep food cold were also established. Early on, streams and caves were the best options for keeping hunted meats and gathered foods fresh and cold.
Related: How To Smoke Bacon The Old-Fashioned Way
Other solutions would follow, including holes in the ground and nooks inside walls, as well as the invention of cold storage. In the past, community cooling houses were integral to survival, and the citizens of small villages would share the space.
People proved ingenious in their quest to keep food fresh for extended periods. Thanks to these early ideas, we no longer worry about how or where we will store our foods today.
However, during a blackout, these modern techniques might not be very helpful. You can learn here, what to do with all your frozen food once the power goes out.
Today, the fridge is a staple of modern society, and nearly every household has one. Due to need and popularity, there are many old discarded fridges, and disposal can be costly.
So what do you do with a refrigerator once it is no longer needed in the home? Well, I’ve got a few ideas for you.
Purchasing items that can help you survive a disaster can get expensive. Fortunately, people throw away old fridges daily. With some creativity, these discarded items can be used in various ways.
Using An Old Refrigerator For Storage
Root Cellar: An old fridge can be converted into a root cellar to store fruits and vegetables. Simply add a layer of sand on the bottom and cover it with a thick layer of straw.
If you want a bigger root cellar, here is a cheap and easy way to build one in your backyard.
Extra Pantry Space: Keep perishable food items such as meats and dairy products safe by using an old fridge as an additional or emergency pantry.
Tool Storage: Store tools and garden equipment inside an old fridge to keep them dry and organized.
How To Use A Fridge In The Garden
Potting Shed: Use an old fridge as a garden potting shed by cutting holes for air circulation and adding storage shelves.
Garden Fountain: Turn the fridge into a garden fountain by installing a pump and using it to create a water feature.
Greenhouse: Use the fridge to grow plants, herbs, and flowers by placing seed trays inside.
The fridge will act as a mini greenhouse, providing a warm, humid environment.
Related: DIY Mini Greenhouse For Year-Round Vegetables
Rainwater Collector: Line the fridge’s inside and use it to collect rainwater. Use the collected water to water plants or wash clothes.
Hydroponic System: Convert the fridge into a hydroponic system by installing a nutrient-rich water tank and plants to grow fresh produce indoors.
Storage Shed: An old fridge can work well as a storage shed for outdoor items such as sports equipment or lawn tools.
Insect Hotel: Insects are a vital part of a healthy garden. Drill holes in an old fridge to create an insect hotel and provide shelter for beneficial insects such as bees and ladybugs.
Seed Starter: Use the fridge as a seed starter by installing shelves and a light source for growing seedlings.
Compost Bin: Cut holes in the fridge for ventilation and use it as a compost bin for yard waste and kitchen scraps.
This way, you will always have much needed compost to feed your plants and reduce waste.
Related: 39 Items You Can Compost
Seed Bank: Store seeds in the fridge to extend their shelf life and ensure their viability for planting.
Ways To Use A Fridge For Survival
Backup Water Storage: Use an old fridge for emergency water storage or fill it for livestock and pet drinking water.
Ice Fishing Hut: Create a hole in the bottom of the fridge and use it as an ice fishing shack to keep warm and dry while ice fishing.
Fill the refrigerator with insulation to stay warm while fishing in cold weather.
Emergency Power Source: Connect the fridge to an inverter and use it as a backup power source during power outages.
Solar Oven: You can create a solar oven by installing a reflective surface and a cooking surface in the fridge. Use it as a solar oven for cooking food with the sun’s power.
Related: No-Electricity Cooking Techniques To Use During A Power Outage
Wood Stove: Turn an old fridge into a wood stove by installing a metal chimney and a grate to heat a room or cook food.
Emergency Shelter: Line an old fridge with insulation to create a temporary shelter in case of natural disasters or power outages.
Smoker: Transform the fridge into a smoker by installing a smoke generator and using it to smoke meat and fish.
Other Ways To Use An Old Fridge
Animal Shelter: An old fridge can be converted into a shelter for small animals such as rabbits, chickens, or guinea pigs.
Solar Dehydrator: Install shelves and a fan in an old fridge to use it as a dehydrator.
Use your creation to dry fruits, vegetables, and herbs.
Related: How to Dehydrate Chicken for Survival (With Pictures)
Fire Pit: Cut the fridge in half and use it as a fire pit. The metal will reflect heat and protect against wind and rain.
Portable Cooler: Fill a fridge with ice and use it as a portable cooler for camping trips or picnics by keeping it in the bed of your truck.
Incubator: Use an old fridge as an incubator for hatching eggs by controlling temperature and humidity levels.
Chicken Brooder: Use the fridge as a chicken brooder to keep chicks warm and protected in their early stages of life.
Canned Food or Drink Dispenser: Create a nifty drink dispenser rather than just storing your canned drinks in the fridge. To create a canned drink dispenser, install shelves and a dispenser system in an old refrigerator and use it to store and dispense canned foods or drinks.
Fermentation Station: Turn your old fridge into a fermentation station with shelves and a temperature control system. Use your fermentation station to make homemade kimchi, sauerkraut, and pickles.
With some creative motivation and handiness, the possibilities for what you can do with an old fridge are endless. The metal exterior and insulated interior of a refrigerator make it a handy item. An old fridge is sturdy and can hold many things if needed. In an emergency, a fridge could save your life in so many ways.
You may also like:
Midwest Farming After The Floods: “FEMA Is Worthless”
70+ Projects To Survive A World Without Electricity (Video)
Common Plants You Can Use For Wound Healing
Best States For Looters. Do You Live In One Of Them?
How To Find Preppers In Your Area
What? There are a few decent ideas but seriously? A greenhouse? An ice fishing hut? I had to stop.
yeah, obviously he never tried any of these stupid ideas.
It’s only stupid because you can’t think outside of the box and get creative with this. You really need to develop both skills if you are to survive.
Sounds like some kind of Polish joke with the greenhouse. I think many of these ideas would be best suited using a chest freezer, kind of like the chest freezers in the pictures.
read my greenhouse post below
Four rational things to do with a nonfunctional refrigerator:
1. Store welding rod in it: Pretty good at reducing exposure to water vapor.
2. Home winery: Dark, stable temperature, room for 1, maybe 3, 5-gal. carboys, hide odors, keep insects away.
3. Salvage racks, compressor, fan motor,
4. Remove door; Leave on curb for junkman.
Makes me wonder if a fridge could be transformed into a Faraday cage of some kind in case of a potential EMP attack or a Nuclear explosion!🤷♂️
I mean, IMO it certainly seems like it’d be legitimately plausible at least!!
I agree. Some of them aren’t bad, but use it as a firepit? Even if they are metal instead of plastic inside, they are lined with foam.
I liked the ‘add insulation for an emergency shelter’. Ummm, it is already insulated.
Some of these articles are great, this one, not so much.
I know that the idea is to get us thinking outside the box which is great, but this one needs more work.
They do make great smokers.
Yeah … I use an old refrigerator, laying on it’s back, next to my deck, usually the freezer part filled with ice, and soft drinks or beer, and the fridge part … holding outside toys (bad-mitten rackets, frisbees, footballs, baseballs and gloves, etc.) I have another non functional refrigerator in my garage, which I use as discrete can good, storage, water bottle storage, dry good storage. In Arizona, storing anything in a cool, dark area means relegated to inside or underground. The fridge is insulated enough to keep it cooler than the normal garage, and dark.
I certainly do question Green house? Ice fishing hut? I have seen them as dehydrators, and smokers. My mother about 30 years ago, smoked her first turkey in an old single door refrigerator.
Putting open flame near any modern fridge?
Have you heard of an invention called plastic??
You pull out there plastic and just use the metal shell
Yeah, i was thinkin the whole plastic issue would prevent using as a smoker, but once plastic interior is removed, possibly so. Plastics give of a wonderful variety of gasses and smokes when burned and learning what those compounds are is a great exercise in grammar and pronunciation. Makes Supercalafragalisticexpaladocious look simple! lol And that may be misspelled too, just off the top of my head.
the outside paint they use on most appliances is highly toxic, don’t burn it.
I recently stripped the metal off of a fridge to use the sheet metal for other projects. It is not a simple process because that foam is blown in as a liquid and is thoroughly bonded to the metal. I don’t know that it would be possible to reverse the process and remove the insides with the sheet metal shell intact. It is only about 20 gauge steel so pretty flimsy on its own.
Some of these ideas are not bad, but I would NEVER mix fire with a refrigerator. Even if you removed the plastic inner liner and the insulation, the outer shells are too thin and would burn through. Even as a fire pit it would not be a long term solution for anything. Let’s not even get into using them for shelter of any kind. That is just ludicrous…
Lived in the rocky mountains and grew potatoes. in an old chest freezer. I lined the lid with aluminum foil and opened to the sun and closed at night,got early potatoes that way!
Ok, now that does sound pretty darn good!
Some of these are ridiculous. How teeny do you have to be to stand in a fridge to fish?
Haha, that is so funny !! I laughed hard when I thought about what you said, makes sense !!
The closest I could come to that being even sort of reasonable would be if you turn the fridge backside to the wind and tucked a chair back into it with your ice hole in front of it. It might be a fair step up from nothing but you would have to be a lot smaller than I am unless you find one of those giant Coldpoints or something!
Perhaps the title of this article should have been: “How to use a Plastic Bin”
John Malchovic used one as an entrance
to an underground bunker is one of the RED movies. His yard looked like a good ol white trash redneck yard like we’d see in Georgia. The entrance to the bunker was therefore highly camouflaged compared to the yard. Seems to work better than a greenhouse! Lol
That was awesome, but a pretty bad idea in some areas, where a scrapper might come right into one’s yard for an old fridge if they think they can get away with it.
And i drive right by the recycling center every day. Filled with lots of 3 kinds of major appliances. Washer&Dryers, Refrigerators and window a/c units. All there because of two things. One, you can buy more appliance for your $ than ever and two, nobody in our area wants to service them. You call xyz appliance repair and they tell ya it’s gonna be a service call minimum, plus however many hours to fix plus parts, if they have them and the general total of those over the phone guesstimates is more than a new unit costs. Fridge that needs a $20 relay is scrapped!
Ran into that issue with a new whirlpool fridge under factory warranty. Nobody around to fix it. One repairman told me he’s been waiting parts for a customer for 18 months. And I respectfully disagree that you can buy cheaper today. My $200 clothes dryer would cost me $7-800 today. Sure it has a wide screen tv, internet, coffee maker…all the crap I don’t need or want on a clothes dryer….just give an on-off switch.
I gave my old working fridge to the food bank.
Yeah, fishing shack, ….
i LOVE THE IDEA OF GREENHOUSE FOR SEED STARTING.
I know someone with a junky 1970’s army green just sitting around, I wonder? I could put a child protection lock on it and fit it in that dark empty back corner of the deck and finally take those tools to the shed. Remove everything from inside. Keep plastic and clean the shelves too from inside to remove any dirt and mold. Might want to wear a mask for allergies, Paint for metal. Prevent rust and make look good bright and cheery. Maybe paint a garden on it -3 sides and nice wood tray on top or basket 4 small garden tools. Drill hole {hardest part – how to ask for my husband’s help-hum – it’s much more fun if he is all in and we’re working together} to use for electric cord that hooks to solar panel and grow lights. Solar Panel doesn’t have to be that big or strong.40watts would be more than enough to run a timer and 4 grow light strips. A small generator/battery So be sure you have a cord long enough to reach the sun to generator to refrigerator. Run electric plug into it = extension cord should work for most of it. Use the timer to run plant lights during the night and turn off in morning allowing the panel to charge the system by day. Vertically run grow lights strips in all four corners. Attach with double sided tape. Turn on system, water seed trays and place seed trays on shelves and let time birth your healthy fresh food bounty. This is just think out loud on the internet not complete directions to follow.
Thanks for the article, it’s full of great ides.
I use fridges, stoves and dryers for raised garden beds! Fill bottom with sticks, leaves, etc. Fill top 2/3rds with compost, garden soil, your preference. Plant in square foot style!
What about making a faraday cage out of it?
Here in the big city residents are advised to remove the doors from old refrigerators that are not in use so that children playing do not accidentally become trapped inside. As you think to repurpose your old fridge, be smart about it and make sure that it is not an attractive nuisance and becomes a deadly hazard.
That’s an out of date concept. In the 50s and earlier, refrigerators had latches kinda like a car door. Since the mid 60s, latches went the way of the dood bird. I haven’t heard of any refrigerators that can’t be opened by just pulling or pushing the door open from the inside. At least not a refrigerator the average person can buy. I’m sure there are commercial ones that can be locked.
Gets rid of unwanted children
An old refrigerator with a 100 watt light bulb in it will keep hand tools warm in an unheated garage during the winter. sockets, wrenches etc. makes working on equipment a lot easier.
Assuming 4 months/yr use, it will cost you about $55. ($0.1914/kWh) in Los Angeles, low tier rate)
I used a baseboard heater thermostat to turn the light bulb on and off and that saved a lot on power and also worked great for many years.
The shell of one of the older fridges with the rounded top made a pretty good ice fishing shelter. Laying flat made a sledge to carry your gear out on the ice, set upright with the back to the wind gave you shelter to sit in on a folding camp chair with a jigging pole where you could keep an eye on a set of tip ups. A coat of floor wax on that enamel finish made it slide pretty easy. The new square ones you could attach an old pair of skis for runners.
Love it! And, you have use of your shelter/sled to haul your fish home.
Can you make a Faraday cage out of it?
I was going to explain how to use a non-working fridge for ice fishing but Big Dave beat me to it.
I run into many of the types of negative comments for many of my suggestions, too, so I know how frustrating it can be to anyone that proposes ideas that are much different that the traditional way to use something. It is a shame as many people can benefit from articles like this.
Yes, you do have to think outside the box sometimes and push the envelope, but an immediate knee-jerk reaction of “That is stupid. You cannot do that with that!” is not fair to whomsoever is making the suggestion, nor to those that are reading it. On the first, unsolicited hard criticism (different from constructive criticism that is made in an attempt to improve something) simply insults an author and insults the intelligence of the other readers in that it kind of implies everyone else is simply not smart enough to come up with their own conclusions.
As to the second, those reading those criticisms, especially those new to prepping that do not have any experience with making-do, converting things from one purpose to another, salvaging useful (not necessarily working) part, and everything else that goes along with waste not – want not and conservation of resources, are often put off the ideas since someone that ‘apparently’ has more experience or knowledge about such things has said it is a bad idea or cannot be done.
Now, just because I say something can be done does not always mean it can for someone else. I express my opinions. I very seldom make statements that are intended to be hard and fast. I believe people should do their own due diligence research before deciding if something will work for them.
Now, if I think something might be dangerous or deadly I certainly say so. It is still the person’s decision to do or not do.
Okay. Pretty much finished with the rant about all the negativism in these kinds of threads.
Now, here are a couple of thoughts on the actual subject of using refrigerators (and freezers) when they are no long suitable or wanted for their intended use in a kitchen. That brings me to the point where I would differentiate between refrigerators that still work but are simply no longer wanted in a person’s kitchen for daily use, and those that no longer work. Each has applications.
To subdivide the non-working appliances further there are things that can be done that use the unit more or less intact, just without the refrigeration unit working, and projects where the appliance is modified in some way.
I do not really think the author meant to use the refrigerator as a greenhouse with the original door on the refrigerator closed. More likely it would be replaced with a homemade door using plastic film or some type of sheet plastic.
Anyway, here are a couple of my ideas. One is to strip out the compressor and motor and connect the refrigeration lines to flexible hoses. Bury the unit or build up around it similar to a raised bed for a garden, using sheet foam insulation next to the refrigerator up to where the door fits yet will still open as a chest unit, if it is not one already. If you have a well and add a solar powered pump to it you can pump cold well water through the refrigerator coils to keep the inside of the fridge quite cool.
Alternatively, if you happen to have a spring anywhere on your property you can convert the refrigerator to a spring cold box and either let the spring run through the refrigerator through holes you have made in it or even possibly connect a hose to the refrigerator coils and run the cold spring water through them the same way you would from a well. However, since refrigerator cooling coils are usually fairly high pressure, therefore small diameter, gravity flow might not be enough to circulate the water. In that case either a solar pump to pump the spring water through them, allowing the box to be close to the spring but not in the channel, or you can make a set of coils to go inside the refrigerator interior out of larger copper tubing and let the spring flow through them. If you seal the opening you can have the box down in the spring runoff channel without keeping it full of water.
Now, while you certainly do not want to burn either the inside plastic parts or any paint inside or outside, the plastic can be removed and the paint stripped off so you can use the shell for other things. It will not be very stout that way, but if buried or mounded with some slight reinforcement the metal box can be used for projects. One of which can be as some form of cooker, heater, or smoker.
As a smoker you can build a fire pit with fire brick in the compressor area, use some ducting run for a few feet to allow the smoke to cool, and then run it into the inside area of the refrigerator with appropriate shelves and/or hooks for the meats (and some types of vegetables.)
Similar to the greenhouse idea, but with plenty of additional insulation, a fridge can be turned into a solar cooker. The lid can have reflective materials added, either foil, space blankets, pieces of mirror and the like, as well as the inside of the fridge to reflect the light directed into it from the lid. Make a cover of plastic film or sheet plastic to enclose the area from the open lid to the box so ambient air cannot enter to help hold the heat in. Run remote thermometers through the wall so you can monitor the air temperature as well as the cooking temperature.
If you have additional reflective material you can add external reflectors to direct more sunlight to the lid, which will be reflected to the inside.
Though already mentioned, in order to prevent anyone wanting to salvage the parts from the old fridge, turn it into what has every appearance of being a root cellar, but put a drop floor inside it down into a shelter or safe room and only have a few things in the refrigerator ‘root cellar’ for effect. There just are not that many people that ever think of doors being vertical and/or horizontal.
Just a few of my thoughts on the subject.
Jerry
Great post. Thank you!
I was stunned to see negative comments on ice fishing shelter and greenhouse. It was easy to visualize . The smoker too.
Too bad there isn’t a way to block comments that are unnecessarily negative, and obviously critical due to their ignorance.
If you use a chest freezer as a root cellar, burying it in the backyard works well as long as you leave six to 8 inches above ground. Sand in the bottom, wire baskets with handles so you don’t have to get on your belly to get stuff out, and a heavy piece of plastic to drape over the sides so water doesn’t get in. Remember to provide a vent.
A chest freezer in the barn also works well to store grain for the animals. Make sure it also has a vent and use the plastic drape just in case there is a water leak. If you have horses, they will find a way into the freezer if they have access.
Some of the old commercial refrigerators were lined with stainless steel. If you can find those, they make excellent whitefish smokers.
If you have to dispose of an old refrigerator or freezer, they now have to be certified as freon free. Last time I had to pay about $125 for the certification. It doesn.t matter if the compressor and inards are gone, they still demand the certificate and it still costs.
good article.
i keep all my chicken supplies in an old fridge set right next to my coop. there are so many uses for old fridges just use your imagination
We have a small chest-type freezer that gave up the ghost that we plan to use as a worm farm. the freezer has a drainage hole that will be perfect for draining the liquidate and the insulated sides would protect them from the weather. Fact that it’s metal will protect the worms from varmints.