The developers of my new house have had, (what appears to my mind to be) a brain-fart, and designed the kitchen to have an integrated fridge in the base unit next to the double electric oven.

Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but I know that ovens get hot and fridges get cold.

Would it not be the case that whenever you put the oven on, the thingummy* for the fridge will then have to work twice as hard as normal to keep the fridge cold ? If that's so, it'll whack up the electricity bill somewhat Or is it that these things are designed to be placed next to each other nowadays, so I'm worrying over nothing ?

Cheers, Stu

* whatever you call the bit that makes the fridge cold

 

I'm sure it would make better sense to not have them next to each other, but I expect they must design in that situation nowadays, Just imagine a kitchen with, dishwasher, oven, washing machine, tumble dryer, where the hell would you put the fridge???????
It'd always be next to something that gets warm!

 

As said, it's not ideal - I'm avoiding that situation in the new kitchen I will be installing shortly. However it should work OK. The fridge will just have to work a bit harder, but it shouldn't get that much worse than on a hot summer's day. Remember the oven isn't going to be on all the time.

 

It's not too bad as said. Some design principles have a working triangle of fridge/sink/cooker... Sounds like yours will be rather small.

On the technical front, the compressor might run a bit more on the fridge. More worrying would be that one side of the fridge might not be as cool as the other when the oven's on...

 

Strange as it may seem, if you feel the back of a fridge, and the back of a modern integrated oven, it ain't the oven you will burn your hand on. So long as there is a divider panel between the two it will be fine.

 

Thanks for the comments.

I've just phoned the Zanussi customer care line and they gave me a definite NO to the question, on the basis that it would put additional load on the fridge's compressor and such placement would invalidate their warranty.

I was going to ask about their warranty position with regards to modifications and track days, but thought it'd just confuse 'em

Looks like I'll be discussing a kitchen re-design this lunchtime As an aside to chiark, the integrated fridge is a supplementary store that the developers are including in the cost ... my existing fridge/freezer will be forming one of the corners of the work triangle.

I may come back later with some suggested layouts ...