Domestic fridges are generally smaller than commercial refrigerators. Imagine your refrigerator at home compared to a large 3 door commercial display fridge at your local supermarket.
In general, domestic refrigerators combine the fridge and freezer into one unit. This saves on space in domestic kitchens that only have room for one refrigerator, and enables people to buy the perfect fridge for their home. The inbuilt freezer can be mounted at the top, on the side, or bottom of the refrigerator, allowing quick and easy access to frozen goods.
It’s also popular to purchase a separate upright freezer or chest freezer, which many people choose to store in the laundry, garage, or out in the shed. This is great for storing meat, bread, ice, dog food, and other prepared meals for the family on a more long term basis. You can learn more about static cooling vs fan forced cooling systems here.
Static cooling is ideal for domestic refrigerators as the system circulates compressed gas around the refrigerator and cools the internal walls. This is excellent for cooling food and beverages down and holding the ideal temperature. It also means that the unit runs more quietly than a commercial refrigerator that uses fan forced cooling. This is great for homes where everybody wants peace and quiet.
The static cooling system is also what makes domestic refrigerators cheaper than commercial fridges. Static cooling systems are much more simple and don’t require heavy duty fans to regularly cool the entire unit. And as long as the doors are not opened too frequently, which can displace the cooled air with the warm ambient air, the unit remains cool and can be quite efficient on power usage.
Since this type of cooling is not very powerful and can’t handle constant shifts in temperature, a domestic fridge generally can’t handle regular opening of the door without the internal temperature being affected. Regularly placing warm food inside the refrigerator can also affect the internal temperature and makes the fans, compressor, and cooling system work much harder than it needs to.
Although some commercial refrigerators can also be roughly the same size as a domestic fridge, such as a single door glass display fridge, it most likely has a much more complicated cooling system.
Commercial fridges and freezers are made with much higher quality materials, as they generally have a more robust cooling system, known as fan forced cooling.
These fridges can handle the door being opened and closed constantly, such as in a busy commercial kitchens or at the front of a shop where people are regularly grabbing drinks and snacks.
They can also handle a much higher ambient temperature, as they may be placed in very hot commercial kitchens, next to commercial ovens and other hot appliances.
Commercial fridges use fan forced cooling to quickly and efficiently cool down the unit. This is what makes the fridge much more expensive, as a robust cooling system like this has many moving parts, including large fans that circulate the cooled air throughout the unit. It also makes commercial fridges more expensive, as they work much harder to keep food that is being exposed to ambient air at a constant temperature.
Ever noticed when you open a fridge or freezer at the shop, you get blasted with a wave of cool air? That’s the fan forced system working very hard to make sure the food is kept cool, even if you keep the door open for a long time.
This cooling system is also much louder than a domestic fridge, as the internal and external fans work hard to pump chilled air inside the unit and remove excess heat. The fans also are work more to handle doors opening regularly, a high ambient temperature in the kitchen, or hot food being placed inside regularly. Restaurant owners and shop owners need to know their stock will remain fresh and properly kept cool, so that they can serve the best quality food to their customers.
Domestic units are made by manufacturers who keep the size of their customer’s kitchen, noise requirements, and power bill costs in mind. While commercial refrigerators are made to quickly cool food and beverages for their customers, handling high traffic environments and made to with durable materials to last years of regular use.
