Next message: Amesbury, Kurt: "lv-ab: RE: live-aboard-digest V1 #147"
Ok, so I went to Circuit City, and that chest is huge. No way that I could
fit that thing on my 30 footer, not with the current layout. Then the other
day I was cleaning out my land storage place, and voila what do I find? 2
old college dorm fridges. Now I remember the first room I lived in at
college and in the months of May, August and September that room was a lot
hotter (no AC) than my boat ever is within the same latitude. The old room
was boiling, but if you turned that fridge to max cool you ended up with
frozen everything. Now I am considering trying them out on the boat to see
if I ascertain the same results. They draw only 1.1 amps at 110V so I am
pretty sure that my 500W inverter and my solar panel will take care of it.
Especially since it will be more driving than sailing down the ditch. I
think I will try the smaller 1.7cu foot one first. Hell if it doesn't work,
oh well. I have been living without refrigeration for 4 years now, why do I
need it to go down the ICW. I am sure one of you guys will give me a few
blocks of ice if needed, if not there are plenty of places to stop to get
ice. Yep, guess I am one of those minimalist. The question I ask myself at
times like this is how far do I want to get out of the minimalist box, will
I enjoy my life as much as a when I move on the scale towards making myself
seem more like a "yachtie". Don't know....
Likely living with less than the Amish-
Brian
N30 Neverending Story
St Mary's City, MD
Chesapeake Bay
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [SMTP:]
> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 1999 8:51 PM
> To:
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: lv-ab: Re: AC Reefer Update
>
> In a message dated 8/6/99 7:51:17 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> writes:
>
> << Here's what I decided to do for a refrigerator. I bought a chest type
> freezer for $179 at Circuit City. I got a freezer because they have
> twice
> the insulation of reefers. On my last post, I indicated that I was going
> to
> change the thermostat so that it could maintain above freezing temp. but
> I've changed my mind and made it simpler. Rather than remove and replace
> the current thermo, I am going to attach a new thermo to an AC outlet
> fixture. That way, if I want to operate the unite as a freezer, I simply
> plug the freezer into a regular AC outlet. If I want to operate it as a
> reefer, I'll plug it first into this new outlet that has a thermo control
> on
> it and then plug that control device into a real AC outlet. This makes
> the
> wiring much easier....do it all on the bench and just carry to the
> freezer,
> plug the freezer into it and plug it into AC and I have a reefer.
>
> This unit only uses 90 watts of energy. I'll feed it with an inverter.
> With the extra insulation, it should keep things cold for extended
> periods
> of time w/o power.....hopefully. I report on that later.
>
> Glen Evans
> Building a 32' in the backyard in Arlington, Va.
>
> >>
> Glen,
>
> I have one of those freezers, I got it at Circuit City, and I bought it
> for
> the same reasons.
>
> It pulls 12 amps from the (12 v) batteries when running, and the paperwork
>
> that came with it suggested it would be running about 50% of the time.
> That
> is 12 times 12 or 144 amp hours, which would double our normal
> consumption.
> This is for average conditions, more if ambient temp is higher.
>
> The box is not high efficiency. The hot condenser is on the inside of the
>
> outside skin of the box, about as close to the cold evaporator as
> possible.
> It would have been much better to hang it on the outside like most
> refrigerators.
>
> My idea was to put zip locks of water in the bottom of the box, freeze it
> to
> ice, and use the box as a reefer, running it only when we ran the
> generator,
> which we do almost every day for at least three hours. We have been
> traveling 8 days out of the past 15 and plug the freezer into the inverter
>
> where it is powered by the alternator on the main engine when underway.
> It
> stays frozen when we do this. I could hook it up so that it would be on
> only
> if the generator or main engine were on but it would take some time to
> hook
> up and there is so much else to do. I might do it anyway, just to see.
>
> Anyway, the ziplocks leaked. We then bought water in plastic bottles.
> They
> cracked when frozen. Now the box has about three inches of frozen water
> in
> the bottom.
>
> We have been keeping frozen meat in the bottom of the freezer. Beer in
> bottles have sometimes lifted their caps when frozen and some of the soft
> drinks in cans burst.
>
> The idea is sound and is used by "holdover plates". Maybe it could be
> made
> to work with more tweaking. We have not been paying a lot of attention to
>
> it, we have lots of other things to do.
>
> What has been your experience?
>
> Norm
> S/V Bandersnatch
> Anchored Norfolk VA
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