One of the reasons for avoiding placement of a refrigerator in a cold environment is because the temperature sensor on many units is in the fresh food section, which typically maintains 40°F to 36°F. The freezer section maintains a freezing temperature (usually 0°F) by basically getting all of the chilled airflow except a small portion that's diverted into the fresh food section. If the room temperature is near-enough or below the fresh food setpoint then the fresh food section doesn't *gain* enough heat to trigger the unit to run, and the *freezer* section temperature can rise.

I've seen in the past a low-ambient retrofit kit for some units that attaches to the temp sensor and generates a tiny amount of heat to "trick" it into turning on often enough to keep the freezer section properly frozen.

It's also possible that newer compressor designs and refrigerant (Freon) types can have trouble running in a cold environment vs. at normal indoor household temperature.

This all-refrigerator unit (has no freezer section) reportedly (a couple years ago) can operate at lower ambient temperatures (down to 10°F).

Frigidaire FFRU17B2QW

Is your garage unheated, or do you keep it barely heated through the winter? What do you plan to use the garage fridge for? Will you use it mostly in the summer for cold drinks and unplug it during the winter months?

We carefully reviewed our needs and decided that we are better off with an all-fridge in the garage rather than with a fridge/freezer combination. Of course, that's not necessarily cheaper. All-fridge columns are typically targeted at high-end kitchens not at garages. But I wasn't going to put a $10k+ SubZero into our garage :-)

We ended up buying a commercial True refrigerator. Extremely happy with our decision. It's the perfect unit for a garage. The only downside is that True won't offer warranty service for residential installations.

There are such things as true garage fridges. They usually cost more. Also, some people put a light bulb inside the fridge section in order to trick the temp sensor.

We had fridges and freezers sitting outside in a carport and garage in cold weather and never worried about it. But it only occasionally gets below 25F in TN.

I've had a 21+yo KitchenAid topfreezer in my garage for 14 years. Never had a problem with operation. TX central-coastal weather is milder than either MI or TN but there are occasional freezes. Lowest I recall over the time period is 18°F, which is uncommon to dip that low.

We have a couple of Frigidaire's in our garage. They are all frig or all freeze, each is switchable between frig/freeze, and are rated for down to 20°f IIRC. We mostly keep one as Frig and one as Freeze but occasionally switch to both one way or the other depending on our needs. We've had them for about 20 years and they've worked quite well.

We'd get two more in a heartbeat if these ever go out.

Buy a used/refurbished ancient one from an appliance store with the coil on back of the refrigerator and it should last a decade or more. We've had ours in our garage for years and it works perfectly. Probably sucks power like crazy, but well you can't have everything haha.

interesting..so could you not buy a cheap fridge/freezer and just not use the freezer portion in the winter--or at all...?

Opaone what particular one did you get? We’ve been looking for a freezerless fridge for the garage, and it’s hard to sort out which ones will tolerate a garage temp to about 25 in the winter.