New Fridge Installation - Water Drain

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Hello!

I will be installing a new fridge and it comes with a drain which has to be run with a loop as a water trap. The book states that this should be tied into the 'grey water' system, which I don't have. Instead, I will run the drain into an area where the turn of the bilge is deep and terminate above a plastic tub (ex antifreeze 5l bottle).

Simple question, how much liquid could I expect to flow through this drain in say a week of use? The reason I ask is that there is an easier run where the bilge is not so deep and I would use a smaller bottle.

The manual (and the salesman) stated that many frosting issues are because this drain is not installed or blocked off.

Regards,

BlowingOldBoots
 
Ours goes directly into the bilge - we get quite a lot in the first couple of days of cooling everything down - maybe 10 litres a day then it drops to a couple a day except after a big shop
 
If the water pools in the drain, it will grow mould and smell.
If the drain is free flowing, cold air will fall out the bottom of your fridge.
If I were installing a fridge from scratch I would think about running the drain into a nearly-sealed container and having the tube easy to clean.
Maybe a float switch and warning light for the condensate level?

The very last thing you want is spilt milk, juice or whatever festering in the bilge IMHO.

10 litres is a huge amount. It implies the air in the boat is quite humid and lots of it is getting into the fridge, or a lot of wet stuff is being put in the fridge?
My freezer at home probably collects 10 litres every six months? As frost.
 
Our drain exits into a paint bucket, about 1.5 litres in size. It usually takes about three weeks before enough has accumulated to require emptying (ie about a third full). Usually put a bit of bleach into the pot before returning it so as to prevent smells.

Used to use a 1.5 litre coke bottle with a hole in the lid for the drain hose but that had to go out of sight behind the compresssor, too easily overlooked and led to spills, hence the move a bucket.
 
Thanks for the tips, ease of access for draining is important so I'll take that into account and 1 litre should be enough, bigger if space permits.
 
I'm a bit puzzled by where all the water posted above comes from. Our fridge has a drain that trickles into the bilge, but I've never seen any evidence of water. The fridge itself is dry as are the contents - how could it be otherwise - as the cold plate condenses out any humidity and turns it to ice. Of course it needs defrosting every few days but that's no problem as the melt water goes into a removable tray. No water makes its way into the bilge.

ps Maybe not all fridges have a cold plate that's below freezing. If so how on earth can you manage without ice for the G&Ts ?
 
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our drain was originally connected to the same grey water skin fitting as as the galley sink all works ok unless healed right over when the bottom of the fridge got sea water in, so we shut the fridge sea cock - this sorted the sea water in the fridge but what was trapped in the pipe then went very smelly. We disconnected the drain and just mop it out with a dish cloth about once a week this seems to work fine.
 
To prevent bacterial build up (known in the fridge trade as 'elephant snot'), add few drops of bleach or toilet cleaner into the drain each month. If you have a wet bilge then it will do no harm gathering there with any other bilge water.
 
When I built a fridge for the last boat I did not incorporate any drain, as a) It was a point of "cold" loss and b) difficult to fit it with access below. Just needed a little mop out from time to time which was not difficult, so why have a drain?
 
Leighb said:
When I built a fridge for the last boat I did not incorporate any drain, as a) It was a point of "cold" loss and b) difficult to fit it with access below. Just needed a little mop out from time to time which was not difficult, so why have a drain?
Click to expand...

Because the bottom of the fridge is always wet! The notion that a 4mm internal diameter pipe will be a source of 'cold loss' doesn't make sense. In any case, the bleach in the collection bucket effectively acts as a seal to any putative cold loss. Finally, with a top loading fridge, mopping out the water in the bottom requires removing the fridge contents...... pain in arras to do that every day or two.
 
I have always had the strange notion that water is supposed to be outside the boat and the bilges are for dust collection and/or wine stowage. our boats in a hot clime collected bilge water alarmingly from the air conditioners and fridge freezer. Eventually I added an empty tonic bottle to several visible drain pipes and soon realised how fast they filled, as also from the expansion overflow from the calorifier tank.Solution was to plumb all drains into a shower sump collection box with an internal auto pumpout to drain it when it needed to, plumbed into the bilge pump outlet. This is a very common feature on boats here in the USA.

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