Which fridge

PabloPicasso

PabloPicasso

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On the wish list is small portable fridge for mainly weekend trips or occasional week long cruise. I usually Use a cool box at the moment but a cool box type portable fridge would be the best of both worlds.

Any tips for good quality on efficiency, insulation and price, oh yes... ....and what to avoid

I no very little about boat fridges as I've never had one, so go ahead and edumacate me

Usual cruising area is the Irish sea
 
I use a Waeco CFX 40 for transporting food in the back of the car on long journeys not particularly cheap but very good, it will even freeze stuff, runs on 12 / 24 or 240 volt.
 
OK to be clear there are maybe 4 or 5 basic designs of "fridge".

A standard compressor based fridge - basically the same as you have at home. Runs on electric. So you need to tell us how much electricary you have available. You can get boat specific ones that run on 12V, or people do use small efficient home ones on an invertor as they often work out as efficient/inefficient.

A gas / electric fridge like you get in a caravan. Can run on gas as well. Do you have gas on board? Installation will be a PITA to be frank. Piping, venting etc. Not sure with modern electricary its considered any more efficient.

A good cool box. With not cooler unit and filled with ice packs etc. Number of openings matters. Insulation matters. But in the right hands 4 days cold is probably possible with the fanciest boxes. But they can cost nearly as much as an electric unit.

A Piezo Electric Unit. You may have seen such in Halfrauds etc. A standard picnic cool box which you can plug in. They are electrically very inefficient. But in a well insulated cool box it might not be that bad. They can usually only cool to 15C below ambient so depends where you are. Don't normally have a thermostat but nothing to stop you adding one! You can even buy the units and build your own if you had a specific space in mind. No cooling gas required, so installation is easy, but very electrically inefficient. If you can spare the Amps then building your own and adding plenty of insulation could be a good option. Adding cool packs might be beneficial, and definitely add a digital thermostat. Home build possible < £100 in a custom space.

Evapouration Fridge - basically a wet box that evapourates the water off leaving a cool surface. Far less effective than an insulated system. But no electricity required. It worked OK as a teraccota pot on my doorstep for milk deliveries that came at 12am and were taken out at 10am next morning. But never measured temps etc.
 
ShinyShoe said:
OK to be clear there are maybe 4 or 5 basic designs of "fridge".

A standard compressor based fridge - basically the same as you have at home. Runs on electric. So you need to tell us how much electricary you have available. You can get boat specific ones that run on 12V, or people do use small efficient home ones on an invertor as they often work out as efficient/inefficient.

A gas / electric fridge like you get in a caravan. Can run on gas as well. Do you have gas on board? Installation will be a PITA to be frank. Piping, venting etc. Not sure with modern electricary its considered any more efficient.

A good cool box. With not cooler unit and filled with ice packs etc. Number of openings matters. Insulation matters. But in the right hands 4 days cold is probably possible with the fanciest boxes. But they can cost nearly as much as an electric unit.

A Piezo Electric Unit. You may have seen such in Halfrauds etc. A standard picnic cool box which you can plug in. They are electrically very inefficient. But in a well insulated cool box it might not be that bad. They can usually only cool to 15C below ambient so depends where you are. Don't normally have a thermostat but nothing to stop you adding one! You can even buy the units and build your own if you had a specific space in mind. No cooling gas required, so installation is easy, but very electrically inefficient. If you can spare the Amps then building your own and adding plenty of insulation could be a good option. Adding cool packs might be beneficial, and definitely add a digital thermostat. Home build possible < £100 in a custom space.

Evapouration Fridge - basically a wet box that evapourates the water off leaving a cool surface. Far less effective than an insulated system. But no electricity required. It worked OK as a teraccota pot on my doorstep for milk deliveries that came at 12am and were taken out at 10am next morning. But never measured temps etc.
Click to expand...

So basically to meet the OPs requirements we are looking at a portable compressor fridge / freezer like the Waeco, other models are available. All the other ones are a combination of useless, don't do what he wants and are basically shite.:D
 
PabloPicasso said:
On the wish list is small portable fridge for mainly weekend trips or occasional week long cruise. I usually Use a cool box at the moment but a cool box type portable fridge would be the best of both worlds.
Click to expand...

petehb said:
So basically to meet the OPs requirements we are looking at a portable compressor fridge / freezer like the Waeco, other models are available. All the other ones are a combination of useless, don't do what he wants and are basically shite.:D
Click to expand...
I'd argue that the Peilter based units do meet his specification of portable fridge (Waeco make some which I *assume* may be better than your average Halfrauds). BUT they are still power hungry. But we know nothing of his power availability.

£110 Waeco W40 pulls 5Amps when running, but I think people commonly say 1.5A per Hour average
The CDF11 is much smaller capacity, but only pulls <0.7A per Hour and is a compressor model...

I'd have thought before being certain a Peilter was the wrong choice I'd want to think:

* Space on board
* Capacity required
* Current available

fredrussell said:
I think you mean a thermo-electric unit.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I actually meant Peilter Electric not Peizo. A Peilter unit is a thermo-electric.
 
The short answer to OP question is as said a Waeco portable compressor fridge. There are other brands but this is cheapest. These can run in your car or boat. The size is the question. A big one has lots of capacity the small one not much capacity. However the big one can be heavy if you load it up at home and carry food in it. I think the answer is to have a small one set as a freezer and use an insulated box as a cool box. Use frozen food that needs to defrost as cooling agent in the cool box. I can even use my tiny Waeco as an overflow freezer at home.
olewill
 
We've had a Waeco CF18 for around 10 years and it's excellent. I do, however, like the idea of a piezo electric fridge ....I guess that you sit by it constantly hitting it with a mallet to create the electrical pulses to power it.
 
i have an inbuilt coolbox in my centaur. i have no idea how thick the insulation is. the lid is only about an inch thick in total.
it works in a warm climate for about 24 hrs on a 2 euro bag of supermarket crushed ice.
i have to put the ice, and a few beers, in a stainless bucket or i end up with floating food.

for a week long cruise i would need much colder ice and more of it. maybe get 4 days at a push if i prefroze the meat.

i had an electric cool box for camping but it flattened my car battery.

i had a three way fridge in my caravan which was fine but i was running on shore power. wouldn't want one in my boat.
might be ok for a mobo. battery power was fine for fridges and everything else on my narrowboat holiday but they did recommend a minimum of eight hours cruising a day, which i did.
 
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