Extra fridge insulation

ShipsWoofy

ShipsWoofy

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hello panel!

I want to increase the fridge insulation of my Waeco 40ltr box. Does anyone know which would be the better material...

Aerosol foam, which should fill all the gaps
or expanded polystyrene sheets, I think the balls would be far too messy

Or am I missing something important, which is the usual material for the job?

Thank you in advance...
 
both products are used in the refrigeration industry and are good thermal insulators, if you do use expanding foam, allow plenty of time with good ventilation to allow solvents to disperse or food will pick up the smell.
Peter
 
Unless you can lay your hands on aerosol insulation foam rather than "construction" foam then EP would be better. Thereagain one can buy sheets of insulation foam from builders merchants or your local HVAC/Refrigeration co. relatively cheaply and cut it to size.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
 
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allow plenty of time with good ventilation to allow solvents to disperse or food will pick up the smell

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The foam would go on the outside, it is just to be an addition to the box insulation,

To Cliff, is there a big difference between construction foam and insulating, any thoughts who might sell the latter in singles?

EP is an option, but the gaps between the back of the box and hull are definitely not square, so I would rather use expanding foam if possible, though this would make subsequent removal of box or pipework rather more difficult in the future.
 
Ours has been done by building a second box around the outside from ply, and then the ensuing cavity (of about 2 inches average depth) filled with loft insulation material.... easy, cheap, and effective..... our cool box stays cold for hours......
 
Agree with Cliff. Go see your local friendly commercial refrigeration company. They use a foil backed insulation panel (different thicknesses) that is used in those cold/freezer cabinets you see in your supermarket.

Just a thought. We went through all this before we went cruising, and found we couldn't get to two sides of the fitted cold box that we were intending to convert to a 'fridge. So as well as putting as much as we could outside, we used the sheet stuff mentioned above on the INSIDE.

It does need protecting inside of course, so having glued it into position round the walls, we laminated white Formica to the exposed faces. The joints were then sealed with white silicon mastic.

It has performed faultlessly for the last 11 years including 7 full time cruising.

Well worth a look anyway!

Cheers Jerry
 
Yep - the construction type foams are gap fillers and generally have a large pore size. The insulation type foams are finer and have better insulating properties. Check your yellow pages for refrigeration companies - I am sure you could pick up a sheet of foam and a small tin of aerosol foam for the hard to reach places.
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hammer.thumb.gif
"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
 
Have just done ours using foil backed foam found in a skip. I gather it was the polystyrene that is used for loft insulation. Ours sits against the side of the hull, so the back of the unit, the sheet was shaped to the hull as was the bottom piece. The hull side was then filled with expanding foam. One litre bottle of water fozen stayed frozen for 2 days.
 
I used a combination of Celotex boards and expanding foam to fill the gaps and awkward places.
A word of caution, though it's obvious now, when you put the foam in the cold box will float! Make sure it's well fixed down.
Dan
 
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A word of caution, though it's obvious now, when you put the foam in the cold box will float! Make sure it's well fixed down.

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erm?

eh?

will you just run that by me once again, so that an idiot might understand!
 
If using two part or squirty foam the pressures are amazing and will lift the box. I know ive don it myself. Also did it with a sceptic tank , had to park the bulldozer on top while the cement and backfill solidified. house close to the high tide line
 
I fitted a top loading cold box into a worktop, there was not one originally fitted.
I started by making a ply box 75mm wider than the new GRP cold box all round, lined it with Celotex boards, then placed the cold box in position. I then poured the expanding foam into the remaining space to fill the gaps. Whilst it was still fluid and expanding it tried to push the cold box out of the surrounding case.
There is a surprising amount of bouancy in one of those things. I suppose I could have filled it with water had I thought about it.
Dan
 
gotcha, I had not thought about that part, I am going to have to lift it a little to insulate underneath, in fact as cold goes down this should probably get the most attention.

Did not think to look on the waeco site, will go look now..

Cheers all
 
If you really want some stuff which works go for those vacuum panels. Sandwich them between thin plywood (protection) and laminate with formica.
You can most likey source that panels from companies dealing witn dry ice. They use them to line their shipment boxes.
 
Just a thought I had a house insulated with a slurry of poly beads and PVA glue.(Think it was a BP system)
This might work and be useful for those awkward crevices,and should be reasonably easy to knock something similar up.
 
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