"If I leave a freezer door open and let it run for a few hours a day will it damage the freezer? I would like to build a foam box around it to trap the cool air that escapes. This is all run off solar to energy is not a concern. I just dont kwow what continuous use will do to my freezer. Thanks. -JW1111"

"A Refrigerator / Freezer makes more Hot Air than Cold Air -W o o f -={("

"Kind of like taking a car door off of a car and into the hot desert with you so that you can roll down the window to keep cool. -RichHagan"

I like that one Rich, :)

Ok,ok

Lets go back to the middle, shall we.

"Im off the grid and do not have the 12 amps or so required to power an air conditioner. What i had in mind was to build a foam insulation box around 300 cases of wine and put the freezer in there with the hot air from the unit venting outside of the box and the cool air from inside the unit is driven out into the box with a small fan. The unit is run off a dump load and only turns on for a few hours during peak daylight to keep my wine cool. I know it is not the best but air conditioning is hard to come by when your limited for power and have to come up with something in a pinch to save losing a small fortune. -JW1111"

Uknow, I once considered this same type of problem for brewing beer, Id like to run 4- 1/2 barrels at various stages of fermentation.

I found that sub-merging the barrels in 60*f water would do the trick. I got no problems with co2. Im sure this won't work for you, as the labels will most likely disintrigrate :).

 But I think you nailed it on head JW1111 (your not signing your posts so this is all I have to go on).

"Im off the grid and do not have the 12 amps or so required to power an air conditioner. -JW1111"

Im assuming there is some other reason you dont want to control humidity. Is this 12amps 120vac? whats the difference between that type of AC load and a fridge?

 You could always stick a 55gallon drum (or two, or more) filled with water, in the insulated room, and that would most likely work better that the open/fridge idea. No matter how to cooled the water in the drums, you would have way more cooling capacity during periods of low power.

 I have not done the calculations on how much btu capacity in tonns can be stored in two or more 55 gallon drums cooled to 40*f, but im sure its enough to out balence all the wine that your storing. If you get the wine 'AND' the water filled drums at the same temp in the insulated room, you could probably keep things under-control for like a week, providing the insulation in the room had a good enough R-factor.

 Oh, and, you dont want too, go back and forth into the room opening and closing the door every day. Perhaps a remotly located therometer with the sensor in the room might be a good suggestion.

 Somehow this reminds me of opening and closing the fridge door to check to see if the light go's out, when the door closes. :)

 Come to thing about it, better unscrew that lightbulb in the frige that your leaving the door open on. :)  

But to answer your question, no, it probably would not hurt the fridge that bad.