Anybody live without a refridgerator?

Thanx guys!

Here's the deal. My dh and I (sorry farmboybill...happily married and old...but if I spot a single woman with my mindset, I'll send her your way!) will be building our bermed, concrete home within three. We're currently in the planning stage. Although we'll be using passive solar/thermal mass for most of our heat, etc...I'd like to also have active solar (panals/hot water). These are very expensive. So we're trying to downsize and learn to live without now. I do believe we will keep the deep freezer for meat. But I'd like to live without a fridge and just see. Talking my family into it is the real problem!

Enjoyed the comments everyone,
Prairiebird

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"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good...thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array."

I suspect that you're going to need some propane to keep warm enough in the winter. Get an unvented furnace like one of these (inexpensive, thermostatically controlled, and easy to install).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Comfort-...-/290470482803

You'll be ready for anything with one of those. Trust me, at $133 (delivered) you'll be happy you got it. Depending on the size of your place you may need more than one. Figure about a 20,000 btu/hour heater for every 500 sq ft of living area.

For hot water I suggest that you preheat water with a solar collector as best you can inexpensively, then use propane for the final heat as needed. Any preheating you do will save just that much in propane, but you need to have reasonably warm water to bathe in. As you already acknowledged, doing all of your hot water with solar is going to cost you an arm and a leg.

For efficiency, consider a tankless model. At bare minimum, get one of these 6L models, but you may want a larger one later.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LPG-PROPANE-...-/250829755843

I would have gone tankless at my cabin, but a neighbor had a 40 gallon propane water heater that she gave us. You can't beat free!

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Ha, Bet im older.

I did for 6 months just to see how it would go. I have a springhouse and a fruithouse here. When my Dad had a dairy he kept the milk cold in 10 gallon milk cans in a springhouse. I have a gravity spring to my cabin and run some water through the springhouse. A 4'x6' concrete "pan" with shelves in the back, sawdust insulation in 6" walls and above the ceiling. For day to day I didn't really need refrigeration, milk twice a day and eat what you got. Miss the goodies but got along fine. Butter doesn't have to be refrigerated. My Grandmother didn't have refrigeration in Kansas....James

James, what is a fruit house? I never heard that term before.

Like a cellar only above ground. Concrete floor, bins for apples with 2 barrels for cider and vinegar. Canned fruit shelves down both sides, sawdust insulation all around and on top....James