Super Efficient Top Loading Fridge

This is the best idea I've heard of in a long, long time: an eco-friendly Austrialian guy modified a top-loading chest freezer into a refrigerator by tweaking the thermostat on the thing.

It's so simple, it's almost stupid; but the fact is, cold air sinks, so every time we open our fridge, all its cold air falls out and it has to make more when we close it. It's seriously a mystery to me why we haven't thought of this before - I mean, I know humans are creatures of habit, but this is silly.

Apparently, a regular house fridge expends 1 whole kilowatt hour (1kWh) every day - a chest fridge uses 90% less energy, costing only $5 to run for a whole year. A regular fridge in New York, for example (where electricity costs about 14.3 cents per kWh) would cost$52 to run for a year. If you think about your own fridge, or your parents' fridge, and how long they've had it, imagine how much money they would have saved; since they have 2 fridges, my parents would have saved at least $860!

Obviously the key problem boils down to home architecture; if architects became savvy about this top-loading fridge, they could easily become the new standard. If you know any architects (you know who you are), pass the word on.