Describes a study to investigate the effect of door openings and kitchen environment on the energy consumption of nine household refrigerator/freezers in the field. The factors considered included fresh food and freezer door openings, length of door openings, ambient kitchen temperature and kitchen relative humidity. Average daily energy consumption for the nine units ranged from 1.7 to 5.3 kWh/day. Energy consumption was found to correlate with kitchen temperature and the number of door openings. No dependence on kitchen relative humidity was found. Finds that in general, the magnitude of the door openings component of energy consumption was higher for the more efficient units.

KEYWORDS: year 1995, Energy consumption, domestic, refrigerators, freezers, kitchens, temperature, relative humidity