On that note, one thing people can and should do to reduce the load on refrigeration is acclimate it's contents if necessary before putting them inside of it.

It is more efficient to let ambient outside temperatures or even the AC system do the cooling than any point of use consumer refrigerator.

In the house I moved out of 1 1/2 years ago, I built a system that would exchange the heat in my fridge with the cold air outside. I built it out of computer water cooling, beer making, and aquarium parts. The energy usage of my fridge dropped to 1/20th of it's normal use. The fridge would still need to kick on in order to keep the freezer cold, though.

The system I built used a device called a thermo cube. This is a little device that only turns power on when the temperature is below freezing. This went out side. I didn't want my system to operate if the temperature outside was warmer than freezing.

If the temperature was below freezing outside, it would turn on. In the fridge, I had a thermostatically controlled outlet that I purchased from a beer making company. I would set this to 36 degrees and I set the regular fridge temp to 39 degrees.

Inside the fridge and outside, I had two matching radiators with computer fans attached to them. When the fridge called to be cooled, an aquarium pump would circulate glycol (I know, bad inside a fridge) from the fridge through a hole I cut in the back of my fridge, through insulated tubing, to the outside of my house where I had the other radiator. The glycol would then pass back in to the fridge colder than it started.

The best part was that the system was absolutely quiet. The only sound that could be heard was when the fridge was open, the computer fan could be heard.

But isn't safer for the food. To prevent bacterial growth in food, you want it either hot or cold, and leaving it cool outside of the fridge keeps at a good temp range for bacteria. Much safer to put the hot food right into the fridge.

I was speaking specifically of items like beverages that are often warm from storage or the store and have a relatively high specific heat density.

New items are typically already cold or unrefrigerated as needed - but when opening stuff that requires refrigeration afterward, it also makes sense to make an effort to acclimatize it before opening.

You obviously need help with your beer problem. I can send you some shipping boxes and address labels to help you get rid of excess beer.