Thermo Electric CoolBox - any good?

No good. Draw 4 amps and dont cool down well on a hot day. Make heat more than cool down.
Compressor fridge a lot better.
I have a small EuroEngel fridge/freezer/coolbox which has a proper compressor. Bought it at Beaulieu 2 years back for £40 ("buyer beware" pricing). Worked perfectly once I rebuilt the on/off switch which was rotten courtesy of someone using a plastic bag and a cable tie as waterproofing over the switch. Could have bought a new example of the same (old) model at the time for £225.
Uses an average of just over one amp.
The EuroEngel is about 4 inches longer than the peltier box and about twice as heavy. If loaded with food it is quite a stagger to carry.

The laugh was that I had to call out the AA when I got back to the car with my 'new' fridge in hand, as I had left a Peltier based coolbox switched on in the boot and it had flattened the somewhat knackered 70AH diesel start battery.

I rate the fridge as the most useful thing I have bought and repaired from Beaulieu.
 
On Seaspray the bilge kept the beer nice and cold but Cuchilo was all posh with an electric cool box . I soon found out that ice packs alone would keep the beer cold for the weekend as long as you keep it full . I've since fitted a three way fridge and although i do have a spare battery topped up at home ( i dont like the idea of using the gas option on my petrol boat ) again ice packs seem to do the trick . I use the slimline ones so i can pack them in all the gaps .
In effect i am just using a sealed box so maybe lining the locker itself with a seled top may be a way to go ?
 
If you really want to do something before bedding the locker surrounds - how about making a well *insulated* compartment, such that cold stuff stays cold, and you could stick some frozen water bottles in to cool other stuff. Then when the day comes, you can fit a cold-plate (?) & compressor to the compartment?

I've never done this, but I reckon 75mm (3 layers of 25mm with the joints staggered), or so of builder's polyurethane wall insulation slab (Kingspan, Celotex, or similar) carefully fitted to all six sides would give you a compartment that would keep stuff frozen for days.

I've had a peltier cooler, and agree that they're not worth bothering with, except maybe for picnic trips in the car.

Andy
 
The commercial fishing boats here have large iceboxes (anywhere between 2 and 10 tonnes capacity) which usually have about 3" / 75 mm wall thickness of foam. They can stay out at sea for 10 days, return with a full load of fish, all of which have been chilled down just using the ice in the box (no refrigeration) and still have a lot of ice remaining.
(They usually figure on the weight in the icebox staying constant - as they add fish, the ice melts and drains off).

Some pals of mine here used to have a Wharram cat, and they applied commercial fishing icebox theory when they built a cool box for their cat - it is a substantial box that lives on the bridgedeck, built with 4" of foam insulation, and it will keep food chilled for 10 days in the tropics, no worries - again with no refrigeration devices to contend with.
 
Sadly Roach is too small to have a dedicated ice-locker. The batteries sit either side of the engine in the cockpit lockers where the ice chest should go. On a wooden yacht I also like to see the hull too - so prefer something moveable. I think that my best option is to either get a compressor type portable unit (even that would be a tight squeeze), or use a cooler and pack it well.

Thanks for all your help anyway. I wont be getting a thermo-electric unit now from what you have all said. I have seen a rubbermaid unit with an ice-pack that uses the space around the beer cans - I might get that.
 
Very wise move not to have something built in - Sods Law would have it that you need to get access to the hull behind it 2 weeks later after installing.....

Just get an ordinary portable cooler / Eskie / ice box, use frozen water bottles instead of gel packs (you can then drink the water), put a couple of damp towels over the box, and you will be amazed how long it will keep things cold for, especially in your climate. Works well here, and we have day time temps around 30C.

Oh, and I will heartily endorse Bumble's suggestion above to lay in a good supply of red wine boxes as well! But if the weather is very hot here, even red wine is nice if it is chilled down a wee bit.
 
We've got one of the cheapo 12v cold boxes - it really does help to put the cold packs in while frozen, we got a 240v/12v transformer so we can run it when we've got shorepower - as the boat is on a swinging mooring we tend to go to marinas (nice for a change see!) and then the elec cold box is fine - it will cool food down.
When under engine the unit gets turned on - otherwise it is off....
 
I would agree with the sentiments above. Use a cool box or else make one in a locker. If you use a locker with sides against the hull below the waterline so much the better.
Freeze everything you can : milk, meat etc and add frozen bottles of water. I like to use the 500ml bottles of water you can buy in the supermarket as you can get ones with a square shape that pack into the box better. Just buy them once and re-use as often as you need. I also use the blue gel pack thingies to fill in the gaps. If anything the only problem I have had is getting the milk to defrost in time for breakfast.
Using a wet cloth is good for cooling things too in hot weather. Evaporative cooling I think its called.
 
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