Does a fully stocked refrigerator consumer less energy than an empty one?
(PS why does fridge have a d and refrigerate doesn’t? and now the more I look at both the more confusing the correct spelling seems. Should it be refridgerate? no that looks all wrong. frige? 
)
WAG follows: if you leave the door closed, the fully stocked fridge will consume less energy. The average rate of heat loss through the walls of the fridge will be the same in both cases; but in the case of the fully stocked fridge, the extra stuff in there gives the system a higher heat capacity, and so it’ll take longer for the interior temperature to warm up to the point where the thermostat says, “Hmm, time to run the compressor now.” It’ll also take longer for the refrigerator to cool back down enough for the thermostat to turn off the compressor.
So the net effect of having stuff in your fridge is that the compressor will run for longer, less frequent spells; the total amount of time it’s running will stay roughly the same. But since the fridge consumes extra energy every time it starts up, anything that causes it to turn on & off less will cause it to consume less energy.
I should stress that I know next to nothing about refrigerator mechanics, and this is just an intuitive back-of-the-envelope calculation. Someone more knowledgeable than I may be along shortly to lay a smackdown on me.
Home Comforts, the ultimate housekeeping book, says that a fridge should optimally be fairly full, but not too full, for energy-efficiency purposes. Same for the freezer. It has a whole section explaining exactly why and how, so next time you’re at the library or bookstore, take a peek.
(Sorry I can’t quote for you, but my poor exhausted husband is asleep near my copy, and if I go in there the kids will jump on him.)
That’s actually a pretty good answer, MikeS.
Another factor is the amount of cold air that can get out when the door is opened. A big, empty fridge might have about a half kilogram of air in it. Part of that will get replaced with warmer air when the door is opened. A full fridge will have less air in it, and so less warm air will get in.
Ain’t gonna make a great deal of difference to the energy bill, though.
yes, but your much more likely to open the door of a full fridge :D.
When we bought our new Maytag refrigerator, the owner’s manual suggested that if the freezer compartment was less than 1/2 full, we should put in a couple of milk cartons full of water. As MikeS said, more frozen stuff helps to keeps the temperature stable.
Possibly because “fridge” is an abbreviation not for refrigerator, but for “Frigidaire”, a well-known brand name in refrigerators.
This seems to be most common in people of my parents generation – they seem to frequently use nicknames for products that are actually a particular brand name. Possibly the first major manufacturer of the product, or maybe the first one in their household.
(All the above are things I remember my mother saying.)
The various answers so far are talking about the steady state case, where the contents of the fridge are already coolled to the correct temperature.
In the real world, the things you put in there generally start out at room temperature and have to be cooled. That greatly affects energy consumption. Consider the two limit cases:
Buy a new empty fridge, plug it in and never ever put anything in it. It’ll run every few hours for a few minutes to offset heat leakage, but it’ll never spend any effort cooling food.
Buy a new empty fridge, fill it up with room temperature stuff, e.g. canned beer. As sson as the fridge quits running (several hours later) and all the beer is cold, take it all out and replace it with a new load of room temperature beer. Repeat forever.
Typical reality is somewhere in the middle, but you can see that the total throughput of warm-to-cold food is a large factor in total energy consumption.
Look to the sailors.
Top load
Small door in top to reach for small stuff.
Styrofoam blocks to put in to keep air space to a minimum.
12-18" of insulation on the hull side.
6-12" insulation on the other sides.
Dual seals on all openings.
Keep it closed as much as possible.
Never forget the blocks of Styrofoam.