A survey was carried out in France from April to June 1999. Temperatures were recorded at three levels (top, middle and bottom) of the refrigerator compartment using a data logger. A questionnaire was filled in, enabling the following information to be obtained: characteristics of the family, characteristics of the refrigerator and the use conditions. One hundred and forty-three domestic refrigerators were surveyed, but due to various technical problems, only 119 sets of recorded temperatures were exploitable. The temperatures of the surveyed refrigerators were: average 6.6 C, minimum 0.9 C and maximum 11.4 C. Statistical analysis such as clustering and segmentation were used. It was found that the heterogeneousness of temperature inside each refrigerator seems to be dependent on the type. This study shows the influence of the use conditions on the temperature. No one factor exerts a single direct effect; a combination of the effects of all factors is observed. # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved. C (minimum 0.9 C et maximum 11.4 C). Des analyses statistiques telles que l'arbre de classification et de segmentation ont e´te´utilise´es. L'e´tude a montre´que l'he´te´roge´ne´ite´de tempe´rature dans le compartiment d'un re´frige´r-ateur de´pend du type de re´frige´rateur. L'influence des conditions d'utilisation sont mises en e´vidence. Le niveau de tempe´rature des re´frige´rateurs est le re´sultat de nombreuses interactions entre les diffe´rents parame`tres et non d'un seul des parame`tres en particulier. #
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