The operation of some household appliances is influenced by heat. This is particularly the case for refrigerators: certain models sold in Belgium are not necessarily suitable for high temperatures.
Inside your fridge there is a label with all kinds of information, including the climate class. It indicates the temperature ranges within which the device will operate correctly. For example, if it’s class SN and ST, that means it’s both temperate expanded and semi-tropical, and therefore it will work without worry between 10 and 38 degrees. If your fridge is class N, that is to say temperate: between 16 and 32 degrees. Fridges are not the same everywhere on the planet.
“It is important, for a household fridge, to make sure that you take a good fridge, which is calibrated according to where you are”explains Laurent Gravy, industrial and refrigeration engineer.
Outside its comfort zone on the temperature side, a fridge risks malfunctioning, or even not cooling at all.
In Rocourt, a large area is under construction: no less than 280 fridges will be replaced. “Each year, the summer is getting hotter and hotter. So we have to make sure that the facilities follow and hold upexplains Michel Gomez, technical manager of Cora de Rocourt. And what we are putting in place today is planned for this kind of increasingly hot climate.
On the roof, the new evaporation system takes these changes into account: “The operating temperatures were sized for 37-38 degrees, and now we are switching to 40 degrees because it happens much more frequently than 10-30 years ago”adds Laurent Gravy.
A little advice at home if the temperature in your kitchen exceeds 30 degrees and your fridge no longer follows: clean the condenser (the grid at the back) and avoid opening the door too often.
