Powering the fridge ...

dgadee

dgadee

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The only two real electron consumers I have are a Webasto and a fridge. I was speaking to someone with an old motor boat (and much experience of electronics) and he suggested that I should get a gas/12v/240v fridge and use the gas when away from shore power. He had an Electrolux on board which he thought was great. My original idea had been to upgrade my 20 amp shore charger to 60 amps and run this off my Honda eu20 generator to more quickly charge the 320ah house batteries, but he thought gas was the preferred way to go.

I've just done some searching and these gas fridges don't seem to be used on board boats anymore. Is that correct?

And, if not gas, is my plan to upgrade the battery charging system going to improve my fridge powering regime commensurate with cost.

Or/And, should I ditch the current 12v fridge and get one of these ASU fridges which claim to "store" cold?

I plan to take the boat off for a bit, so am really looking for liveaboard standards. At the lowest cost, of course.
 
The last gas fridge I encountered was on our pontoon in Gdansk being repaired and made ready for further use by a Lithuanian crew after catching fire while on passage during the night. I don't suppose this is typical, at least, I hope not.
 
My father had a gas fridge, which has a gas leak and almost killed my mother, and almost wrecked the boat. They also don't work unless the boat remains level, as they need gravity to function properly. No electrical power draw though.
 
A gas fridge is a complete non-starter, they are dangerous things (almost as bad as Taylors stoves! :D).

The Isotherm ASU system is clever, but it's around £1000. If you were planning to go somewhere warm, you might look at the water-cooled ASU system, although that's even more money.

If your existing fridge works OK at the moment, I'd be tempted to spend some money on 2 or 3 more batteries and a solar panel. Extra batteries will give you extended endurance for the fridge, and a bigger bank is able to absorb charge more quickly, maximising charge efficiency. I'd also look at whether it's possible to add more insulation to the existing fridge.
 
I had experience many years ago with a gas fridge in the Med. It ate gas.
If you're sailing where a fridge is essential, there's probably enough sun to make solar panels efficient, so go for them.
 
When considering my requirements having retired and more time to be on the boat I concluded that 3-4 days away from shore side facilities would be the most I wanted to achieve and a period of 24hours at rest also away from shoreside.
So I have a fridge that can run off the 110ah domestic battery, a 70A alternator and a 25A mains battery charger. So far all has gone well with the battery coping with the way I'm using the boat. 4 days is about as much as I can stand my own company, is the max cold food storage, water capacity and after 4 days a visit to the showers is needed!!
 
When you say 12V I assume you mean a Peltier type, if so these are notoriously inefficient. If you are going to change and want to avoid going the expensive route of compressor holding plate etc why not look at the Waeco cool box which are quite efficient and will operate on 12 and 240 volt..
I would seriously counsel against gas fridges.
 
Is this sailing or motoring? I had enough power from a towed generator when sailing to run everything including the fridge. When parked up the batteries were good for a couple of days.
 
Fitting a larger battery charger will not charge your batteries any quicker as the limitation is the rate at which the charge is absorbed. Your battery bank is small and your current charger could easily handle a bigger bank.

First step is to increase the capacity of the bank, and the second is to increase your alternative charging capability by fitting solar panels. You may also be able to do something about increasing insulation of the fridge to reduce its power demand.

As already suggested gas fridges are not really practical on a seagoing boat.
 
I have a 60w solar panel at the pushpit (unshaded) and 60w one on the coachroof (suffers with shading), during the Summer these almost keep up and i have less AH than you at 220. I keep my laptop charged via shore power and in six months of Summer i used a total of £15 worth of mains electricity, that's for the laptop, a little power tool use and occasional battery topping up with shore power using a 30w charger.

IMO, solar power and a well insulated compressor fridge are your answer and the above would support that. A couple of 100w solar panels in an unshaded location should make you pretty self sufficient. I'd mount them on a light weight gantry at the stern, shading really is a killer if not.
 
Neil_Y said:
Is this sailing or motoring? I had enough power from a towed generator when sailing to run everything including the fridge. When parked up the batteries were good for a couple of days.
Click to expand...

+1

Ours ran fridge, freezer, autopilot, music, lights everything. 270w of solar ran everything at anchor. Fridge and freezer keel plate cooled from penguin.
 
I've had a gas fridge (cool box fridge) on my sailing cruiser for past 29 years and (somehow) still live to tell the tale. I fitted the current ElectroIux model about 20 years ago and it's still working just fine. In theory it shouldn't work when heeled more than a couple of degrees but as I rarely sail for more than 6 hours in a day, the box insulation seems to hide any drop off in performance during the heeled over period. It will also work off 12v or 240v as well but as I don't go into marinas or have shore power at my mooring I don't use this facility. The gas usage is miserly. I always turn the gas off at the bottle overnight and re-light the fridge flame first thing in the morning. All in all I think it's brilliant. I'd rather save my limited 12v battery capacity for more important things - like starting the engine.
 
Pye_End said:
The new Waeco fridge boxes look impressively efficient, eg. http://www.waecofridges.co.uk/freezer/cdf26.htm is supposed to run on less than half an amp.
Click to expand...

Beware that current consumption is an average allowing that it draws nothing in the off phase and about 3 amps in the on phase. The ratio of these 2 depending on ambient temp and what you put in or take out. I have one that looks similar but older model runs on 12 or 24v. CF 18 I think. I do believe the insulation is a bit poor as it feels very cold underneath so
I sit it on foam. I don't imagine a new model would be any more efficient. Not that I am complaining. It actually spends it's life in the laundry as a standby over load fridge or freezer. No it has never been on the boat. Goes well in the car.
Most people around here find that frozen water in plastic bottles in a well insulated box in their boat is good for a few days.
Regarding gas 3 way fridge. My friend just bought a new caravan. It had a 3 way fridge and I urged him to try to get it changed for a 240v (domestic) or 12v (Engel) but the deal was done. The van was to be a home on a remote no power site.
The 3 way fridge draws 10 amps on 12v (almost continuous) He acquired 2 domestic type solar PV panels 160w each and he has the area to mount them. These seem to keep up with the 3 way fridge 12v drain. But it is a dreadful inefficient fridge system. In fact he bought an engel freezer to run on the van's solar and battery system as well. Temps here are a lot higher than UK. 35 tomorrow. 42 last week.
So to the OP don't consider a 3 way or gas fridge. Ditch the peltier type if that is what it is. (touted as electronic having just 2 fans one inside and one outside and will not freeze.) The stand alone like Waeco are cheapest and convenient as you can take em home load up and take temp down then just transfer to boat. (if it is not too heavy). Try to improve insulation but don't cover over the hot compressor end. In fact a small fan might help there. I think best is to run it as a freezer coldest setting when you have engine running or shore power. Back off (raise) the thermostat setting when running on batteries or at night. Fit bigger batteries and as much solar PV panel as you can mount.
If you have a small fridge and need more capacity consider an insulated box for fridge cool function and use defrosting frozen food water etc from the 12v fridge run as a freezer. olewill
 
The Electrolux fridge will not work when heeled but if essentially level will keep things cold and even make ice providing ambient temp is less than 20c. I had one for years. It used about 4 kg of gas a week. Do not expect much out of it on electricity but it will keep things cool providing it it cold to start with. I would prime mine with frozen litre bottle of water.

It is essential that the vent is correctly installed and open to atmosphere. The flame failure device was reliable.

A CO2 and LPG alarm would be sensible.
 
Had an Electrolux 3 way years ago. Worked ok on gas when sailing (boat had no engine) Worked well on240v alongside. Tried it on 12v once, no thermostat on 12v, froze everything solid. Changed the gas burner to Electrolux kero (paraffin?) burner which worked very well.
 
Pye_End said:
The new Waeco fridge boxes look impressively efficient, eg. http://www.waecofridges.co.uk/freezer/cdf26.htm is supposed to run on less than half an amp.
Click to expand...

Depending on ambient temperature I can confirm that my Waeco CF18 uses approx. 0.5A average. The compressor runs (again on average) for about 5 mins every 30 and draws 4A... so 10 minutes every hour at 5A = 0.5AH consumption. I did buy the insulating cover for it...
 
My motorhome, and most others, has an adsorption type fridge that runs on either gas, 12 volts or 230 volts. It works very well on mains and gas but consumes huge amounts of current on 12 volts. It is normal for this type of fridge to only run on 12 volts when the engine is charging. It can be perfectly safe if the gas is plumbed correctly with a flue taking the exhaust outside. Adsorption fridges run by using a small heat source, perfect with gas, OK with 230 volts but difficult to provide with 12 volts. When I was a boy we had a gas fridge at home and I believe there are plenty still around the world. Its biggest problem is that it needs to be perfectly upright to operate. Some have been fitted to mobos and catamarans, where they work well. Friends had one in a trailer tent and again it worked well but ti took them ages to achieve a level where it would start.
 
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