Is there data on how much heat a refrigerator gives off?

You got me there. Except for the negligible chemical energy and electromagnetic energy, you’re right. My post should’ve been a response to this instead:

This suggests to me that the coils, not just the motor, heat the house, when they only release what heat is leaking back into the refrigerator.

I have a better idea. I’ll wait for you to stop snarking other’s posts and then being all crybaby about it.

I’m not sure what you mean. Both refrigerators and A/C work as heat engines in reverse, pumping heat against a temperature difference, from colder to hottter. Pumping directly from cold to hot is no easier than pumping from cold to warm and from warm to hot.

Not so. If both were at the thermodynamically best achievable efficiency, the two would be the same. Depending on which was actually more efficient, one or the other would be the more efficient. So, it’s not clear that it’s a win.

Your second sentence deals with things not achievable, particularly in household appliances.

Are you Braniacs distant cousin?

Right, which is clearly the basis of my third sentence. Do you have some reason to believe that the short-comings of real-world heat pumps would favor the configuration with the refrigerator coils outside? It seems that it would depend on such things as which heat pump–A/C or refrigerator–came closer to maximal efficiency. I don’t know which one does. Your statement that

is not true. What I say would be true if they had equal efficiency.

Sigh. I guess that’s supposed to be an insult. That’s uncalled for, violates the single rule of this message board (“don’t be a jerk”), and exposes your lack of mastery of apostrophe use (not to mention population genetics; we’re all distant cousins).

Just ignore billfish678. He’s always unreliable. That’s why he uses personal insults, because he never gets his facts straight and then gets defensive about it.

So, you are NIT picking, hence the Braniac comment by me . Technically, Braniac is right, but only in the decimal places, the ones that don’t matter.

You expect an AC unit and a refrigerator unit, which operate in somewhat different conditions, and are an order of magnitude difference in cost/size to have EXACTLY equal efficiencies for your point to be right. And your point being if they are exactly the same is that there is NO difference. So, your point is, in an ivory tower, it MAY be a wash. Now thats usefull information !

And even THEN I am still not sure you are right, depending on the interpretation of what you’ve said and what I’ve said.

Uncertain

The ironic thing is I was generally agreeing with you, noting the conditions under which you would be wrong (and nitpicking I guess) and you took the nitpicking to the next level.

That’s right. That’s how the refrigerator Einstein patented woks.