Drilling through fridge

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TheInnKeeper

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Edit.....there’s a 100 people asking similar questions I’ll try to read through those, goodness grief maybe I’ll go through the door :-(

I got this beloved “compact” fridge from my neighbor for free. It fits two 5 gallon Torpedo kegs and two 2.5 gallon torpedo kegs like it was made for them.......I love it.

The time has finally come for me to move my cO2 tank outside this little fridge. Everyone tells me the cooling lines are on the back of the fridge and that I shouldn’t worry about drilling through the side.

Would love some sage advice in this one as I don’t want to lose this fridge......I’ll drill through the front if necessary!

thanks in advance
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Looking through the front door, the back wall, left edge, a few inches above the hump, looks ripe for the picking.
I have three full-size top-freezer fridges in my brewery and I ran gas/electric/temp sensors through that same area on all three.

The safest way I know to hole a fridge is to use a pencil tipped soldering iron to melt a ~1/8" hole through the plastic liner then use a thin probe to poke around in the insulated space to find anything other than the exterior skin. Even if you somehow managed to hit directly on a part of the cooling loop you won't damage it with a soldering iron. If nothing is found with the probing, then drill a larger hole just through the liner, check again with the probe, then drill the final hole size through the metal skin - being careful not to run into that condenser grid hanging on the back! (pick a spot that finds a gap or avoids it entirely).

fwiw, for running gas or water through fridge walls I use 1/4" mfl bulkheads like this:

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They can be had in a few sizes, but the 4" version worked on all three of my fridges...

Cheers!
 
solid advice, but if you don't have a soldering iron handy, you can use a sharp blade to cut a small hole in the inner plastic lining, and then scrape the insulation with a duller 'scraper' that won't damage anything important until you get to the steel outer shell. then you can drill it out with an aggressive bit.

i find, you can run air line through without much issue; slap a little caulk or whatever around the line if there is a gap.
 
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