Can I drill through the side of my fridge?

[akidd17]

In putting my kegerator together I was able to run my regulator manifold on the inside of the door. I was thinking about putting it on the outside of the fridge along with my CO2 tank to free up some space inside. Does anyone know if most newer fridges have refridgerant lines that run through the sides of the fridge? Would drilling to run air lines in be a bad idea?

 

[day_trippr]

Drilling through fridge walls is a model-dependent endeavor. Some fridges use the side walls as radiators, some have an external radiator running up the back, others have a radiator under the bottom (those usually also have a cooling fan).

If you don't see an external radiator either behind or under the unit, you can be pretty sure its integrated into the chassis to use the side skins to dissipate heat. You can verifiy this by turning the unit on and feeling the skin warm up. If that's the case, you can usually find a safe spot to run a 1/4" flare threaded bulkhead through the back wall, then you can use FFL connectors (nuts and barbs) to hook up your tank on the outside and your manifold on the inside.

I've done exactly this on both of my beer fridges and my keezer. I prefer having tanks outside chillers...

Cheers!

 

[akidd17]

Awesome, I'll take alook when I get home tonight.

 

[day_trippr]

If this isn't some obscure brand disposable fridge - or an antique - you can also take the make and model number and hit one of the major appliance replacement parts sites to dig up diagrams specific to your fridge, which will often give you enough info to determine safe spots to punch holes.

I did this for my two brew fridges - one has a radiator (aka condenser) in the back, the other under the bottom - to find that the top-left corner of the fridge compartment was a safe spot to bring power, gas and controller probe through...

Cheers!