Frigoboat or Waeco

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xstucker

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I am about to tackle the job of putting a refrigeration unit into my icebox which has about a 100 litre capacity. It all seems fairly straightforward and I have space outside the box for a compressor etc. I am trying to judge whether it is better to fit a Waeco or Frigoboat? The latter is a good bit more expensive, but as I can't see why, the decision is not clear. Has anyone installed / used either and what are your thoughts on this.

Thanks,
 
We have Frigoboat keel cooler and it is brilliant in the hot seas of the Caribbean. Had a Waeco air cooled fridge before and it took a lot more amps to keep the fridge cool.
 
I'll 2nd that.

If I was going to do it all again, Frigoboat is the only way forward. My fridge is set too about mid-scale (on 4 with 7 being maximum) and the beers are perfectly cold. Oops, I forgot that you Pommie lot like warm, flat beer, so let me re-phrase that; My fridge is set to about mid-scale and the milk is not far off being frozen.
 
Personally, Wouldnt touch Friggin frigoboat with a large boathook. Not the quality of their products necessarily, but their absolute total lack of costomer service.
We had an engine driven system by the above, needed seal kit for the pump, emailed them 7 times, no response, emailed the states, they replied but said it needed to be handled through europe, they forwarded to europe, no reply, emailed states to RING europe to ask them to reply, they said ok, no response from europe. darn poor show. Got me a Waeco now, but unfair to judge if their service is better as had no problems at all.
 
I have a frigoboat engine driven compressor using the inlet water to the engine for cooling/condensing. Eutectic plate in the insulated box to cool it down. Absolutely brilliant, cools very quickly, very powerful and any vehicle refrigeration engineer can fix it if needed.
An aircooled system has to dump the heat somewhere..... into our boat. The warmer the inside of the boat, the less efficient the heat transfer. Any system that uses water for the cooling will be better than an aircooled system, unless high lattitude/low lattitude cruising (when you don't need the fridge anyway).
 
I've also had good service from Penguin

When our fridge died I intially fitted a Waeco unit as it was cheaper, but found the pipes were about half a metre too short and couldn't be extended. I paid the difference and bought a Frigoboat replacement from Penguin. Although the 2 units look similar (they use the same compressor) it was immediately apparent that the engineering of the Frigoboat unit was far superior with high quality fittings and proper supporting brackets for the pipework, whereas the Waeco unit used cheap fittings and no support brackets
 
No experience of Waeco but I had a new Frigoboat unit fitted this year which is quiet, efficient and seems to rpovide endless cold beers. Service from Penguin was first class.
 
is there any difference between makes of fridge unit in terms of the cooling efficiency or are they all the same?

rob
 
No Brainer - choose Frigoboat everytime. The quality of product and service is IMHO way better than Waeco and seems to use very little power (which must say something about the design quality and componentry)
 
Frigo for me - fitted with keel cooler a couple of months ago, very efficient drawing hardly any amps and the beers and poo are always cold. We sometimes keep food in there too!

Seriously, the penguin people were very helpful, and everything just "worked" . Drilling the hole for the keel cooler was daunting, but we used the Sea Lift at Cowes and they even helped with the Sikaflex.

I have to say also that it's very quiet.
 
Re: difference between makes et al

Hi
Basically no, it relies more on the type of insulation you use and the installation as far as venting is concerned, with regards to water cooled in the tropics etc. difficult to quantify as you need to account for the current draw for the recirculation pump.. often not much difference in amps per day.
I had BAD expereience with frigging boat, but maybe a one of, me waeco is the biz... very happy.
I think you can buy any well known product and be reasonably confident of success, but dont expect miracles, talk to the full time liveaboards, the ones who anchor a lot if you need efficiency. we find 25L capacity is great for us, others may need more.
 
Yes, Isotherm et al... they nearly ALL use the ubiquetous Danfoth compressor, the rest is a few bits of pipe and a holding plate or exchanger, no big deal, a fridge is a fridge is a fridge to all intents and purposes, or was that porpoises..... /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Hi All, A very big thank you to all of you. It is clear and almost unanimous that a Frigoboat is the right fridge.

I already had the 'O' evaporator plate, but when faced with the cost of the compressor, I considered buying a complete Waeco system for the same price. A possible error of judgement, so now I just need to find the cheapest vendor of Frigoboat.
 
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