Is it possible to place a refrigerator on a heated floor and what suffers more from such a proximity?

How pleasant it is to sit at the table in the kitchen on a winter morning, warming your feet on the warm floor. It’s just that fears that the refrigerator may not be as comfortable on the warm floor as you do spoil the whole idyll. The editors of purity-en.htgetrid.com decided to find out whether it is worth worrying, and if so, then for what reason.

Floor heating plan in an apartment

Ideal scenario

If you think through your kitchen design in advance, then you still have a chance to install heated floors and place appliances in accordance with all recommendations. These vary depending on the type of flooring, so this will also have to be taken into account.

With electric floors that are not recessed into the screed, it is important to draw up a kitchen design in advance: think about where what furniture will be placed, and only then begin the renovation. Accordingly, where the refrigerator, stove or large cabinets will be located, warm floors are not used and are placed only in open areas. If you want to do the finishing first and then look for the best place for furniture and appliances, this is a bad option.

A water floor, unlike an electric one, can be installed over the entire area of ​​the room even before a specific project has arisen in your head. They are filled with screed, so the location of the furniture is not so critical for them. But do you want to overpay for extra squares that will heat the boxes? We don't think so.So a project developed in advance is still preferable in this case.

By the way

Water floors may seem better than electric floors, however, and there is a big “but” here: such systems are not allowed to be used in apartments, and if your private house has one energy source - electricity, they will be more expensive not only to install, but also to operate.

But what to do if the floors are already laid and opening the screed is simply impractical? Is it possible to put a refrigerator on them without danger?

Married couple in the kitchen

What will happen to the refrigerator if the floors are already laid?

When the project has not been thought out in advance and the place for the refrigerator, no matter how you look at it, ends up on such a heating system, people usually start to worry about the first one. They say that a warm floor under the refrigerator is a direct path to overheating and breakdowns, so it’s better to put it in the hallway or decide to redo the floors.

On the one hand, the fears are not in vain: the compressor in most models is located at the bottom, and the increased ambient temperature will force it to work more actively and with fewer interruptions. This, in turn, will cause overheating, which will certainly lead to breakdown.

By the way

It is really not recommended to place refrigerators next to radiators and stoves, so as not to force the compressor to strain once again. But the same dust can lead to overheating. The question is, will this fact make you push the refrigerator aside and vacuum behind it every week?

But, despite the logical explanation of the problem, in a huge number of houses refrigerators stand on a heated floor for years without a hint of breakdown. Why?

Cooling at high temperatures is exactly what the compressor is designed for.Refrigerators are also used in countries with very hot climates, where the room temperature can be about 40˚C, and in the summer the apartment can be quite hot even in our latitudes. Yes, the compressor is “strained”, but this is unlikely to lead to breakdown. Of course, during active operation, the potential service life of the compressor may be slightly reduced due to wear, but it will still last for years and even decades. Moreover, for most ST and T class models, the maximum permissible ambient temperature varies from 40 to 45˚С, so there will be a margin of about 10˚С even if there are heated floors directly under the compressor.

Advice

Still think that your refrigerator may suffer from constant operation in a warm environment? Then place a sheet of heat-insulating material under it! There is also an option to raise the refrigerator above the floor, increasing the gap for ventilation, but this advice is not so easy to implement, and the result is usually not aesthetically pleasing.

Heated floor installation

What will happen to the heated floors under the refrigerator?

Concerned about the safety of the refrigerator, many people forget that heated floors have their own operating recommendations, and often the refrigerator is one of those things that is not recommended to be placed on such floors. For conventional surface electric floors, which are the most affordable option, the considerable weight of the refrigerator can be disastrous.

A point load will cause the cable to overheat in the place where the refrigerator presses it. This will cause the element to overheat and burn out, and this will obviously happen faster than the refrigerator compressor fails.

Important!

The refrigerator can be protected from heat with insulation, and the underfloor heating cable can be protected from the weight of the refrigerator only with a concrete screed.

It turns out that when thinking about whether it is possible to place a refrigerator on a warm floor, you need to worry more about the floors themselves!

This is indeed true, however, in the case of water floors and some infrared systems, you don’t have to worry too much: such floors are filled with screed, and when the cable is buried in concrete, it is not so easy to squeeze it and cause it to overheat under the weight of the refrigerator.

We hope this information will help you develop a project more carefully if you have not yet started making floors, correct the situation if they have already been laid, or calm your soul: if your floors are recessed into the screed, and your refrigerator is modern, both will remain safe and sound!

leave a comment
  1. Boris

    Our floor heating electric cable burned out under the refrigerator. We didn’t think through in advance where the furniture would be in the kitchen. Now let's be smarter.

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