July 13, 2026, 9:13 am | Read time: 3 minutes
In some stores, they are available ready-made. The internet is also full of construction guides: We’re talking about an earth refrigerator. The selling point is that it cools items like drinks naturally without electricity. myHOMEBOOK spoke with a gardening expert to find out exactly what this is about.
Essentially, the earth refrigerator dates back to a time before electric refrigerators existed. Back then, people knew other tricks to keep food cool and thus preserve it longer.
One method was to store vegetables and fruits underground. A pit was dug for this purpose. It was then supported and insulated on the sides. To prevent too much water from entering, a simple lid or tarp protected the earth storage.
Tried-and-True Method
“This method is tried-and-true,” says Torsten Brämer, gardening expert and operator of Germany’s largest online gardening community, “Wir sind Garten.” “This is how people preserved their harvest and got through the winter. The method relies on the insulating effect of the earth. It’s not a true cooling effect. It’s comparable to a classic cooler, just in a natural way.”
More modern forms of earth storage are marketed as earth refrigerators. These are specially equipped pipes where beverage bottles can be placed. This allows items like beer, lemonade, and other drinks to be kept cool by being sunk into the ground.
The pipes are available in various sizes and lengths. Inside the pipe is a type of bottle rack that can be pulled out and sunk back in using a handle at the top. A lid protects the contents from moisture. To sink the pipes in the garden, a deeper hole needs to be dug. “The deeper you dig, the greater the cooling effect of such an earth refrigerator,” adds gardening expert Torsten Brämer.
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DIY Earth Refrigerator
The internet also offers numerous construction guides for an earth refrigerator. No building permit is needed for this small cooling solution, just a shady and preferably moist spot in the ground. However, if you think this will save a lot of electricity, you’re greatly mistaken.
First of all, the drinks come from a refrigerator, so they are usually pre-cooled. In the earth refrigerator, the insulating effect of the earth helps keep the drinks cool longer. To achieve a cooling effect, adding ice cubes or cold packs would be necessary, just like with a regular cooler.
More Show Than Use
“It’s more show than actual use,” says gardening expert Torsten Brämer about earth refrigerators. After all, such a natural refrigerator certainly offers a wow factor. It’s much cooler to pull drinks out of a possibly self-made ground pipe than to hand them out from a cooler.
Therefore, caution is advised with larger, walk-in earth refrigerators. These can be found online for over 7,000 euros. The necessary massive excavation isn’t even included in that price. When you compare it to the annual electricity costs of a modern refrigerator, which are 60 to 70 euros, it’s clear: Such an investment doesn’t really pay off.