Refrigerator/Freezer

Bacchus said:

Dave...
I'm assuming your Vitrifigo is fridge / freezer. I'm on third season w/ a similar one in our Mainship but the freezer doesn't get cold enough to freeze...even on the coldest setting, It does a great job on keeping beer really cold but that's all.
I was wondering if it's the nature of the beast or if I need to have someone look at the unit.
Any info appreciated.

Click to expand...

How is the ventilation behind the unit? I added a cool air intake fan and hot air exhaust fan behind my Vitrifrigo drawer system. The fridge comes with a fan that blows on the coils, but that may not be enough without some ventilation to remove the hot air.

Allegedly my Frigoboat keel cooled units use about 25ah per unit per day. They have Danfoss compressors and variable speed controllers.

One one of our recent overnight anchorages we used 21% (105amps) of the house bank according to the Balmar Smartguage I recently put in. I had the anchor lights on (have not switched them to LED yet) and maybe one other LED interior light was left on. Obviously something else was on or my fridges are pulling more than I thought.

Pack Mule said:

Walt , That is one sweet looking interior . Was this custom built ? Nice woodwork .

Click to expand...

The interior is standard 2006 Ocean Alexander Altus. The lighting, however,is all LED and colored laminate lenses by my wife. She uses standard 2 watt LEDs and makes discs by tracing around the actual lenses. The 8 X 11 sheets of colored plastic can be bought in just about any hobby store . Since the LEDs are not hot, there is no danger of fire. Just about any color can be achieved with this method and the 2 watts (or even 1watt LEDs) are dirt cheap.)

When some five years ago or so we thought the undercounter AC/DC Norcold refrigerator/freezer on our PNW boat was going on the blink we started researching a replacement. After reading a lot, looking at user reviews, talking to some owners of various makes as well as some of the authorized factory service centers in the area we settled on an Isotherm unit.

We were all set to buy one and install it when the Norcold decided to fix itself. We have no idea what the cause of its problem was but it's been running flawlessly 24/7/365 since then.

But nothing lasts forever.The Norcold was installed on our boat by the PO some 18 years ago and it's never been shut off since we bought the boat 17 years ago. So when it does finally decide to call it quits we'll replace it with an Isotherm unless we find something better has come on the market since doing our initial research.

As an aside, one of the makes we investigated was Novacool. I talked to the factory authorized Novacool service center in Seattle, who at the time was also a Novacool dealer. Much to my surprise the manager referred to the Novacool and "Nevercool" and strongly advised us not to buy one. He recommended other makes over the Novacool, ironically Norcold among them, and was very favorable toward Isotherm. So we took Novacool off the candidate list although we've never met anyone personally who's had a problem with them.

One thing to remember is insulation is the barrier between thr outside the box temperature and the inside the box temperature.

Stick the unit in a closed closet in the wall (even with a fan) and the outside the box temp may be 10-30 deg higher than free air temperature.

The compressor unit works harder trying to get rid of heat , and the insulation is less successful with raised temperatures all around.

I opened up the enclosure last night at the suggestion of the NovaKool technician. Just checked the temps. Still 42 and 20. So lack of airflow around the units does not appear to be the problem. I'll call them again this morning to give them the numbers and see what they recommend.


Mike Metts
KK 42-165
Virginia Beach, VA

Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

My Norcold installed new on boat in '98 is still working extremely and inefficiently well.

Novacool

I replaced my Norcold with a Novacool unit that had the freezer compartment on the bottom. In the California Delta that wasn't a good idea. The freezer worked great but the refrigerator section could not handle summer heat. I had icing problems with lines to the evaporator in the refrigerator. This unit had the compressor cooling coils under the unit with plenty of ventilation. Novacool service help was very good however this was not a good design for my conditions. I currently use a household 120 ac unit which on my boat with the battery capacity and all electric galley is not an issue as to electrical consumption. I really like the cooling and freezing ability of a large household unit with it's ice make and large freezer section. I have a friend with a Vitrifigo upright two door and it appears to be a nice unit. Not nearly as rugged inside as my Maytag with glass selves rugged crisper drawers and real ice making ability. Most of the marine units are RV quality.

I gotta say, if you have the space and cash, FF keen eye on Sun Frost is the best way to go based on the published specs. 3400 dollars and 34 inches wide...only $100 an inch. VERY efficient though. Damn shame they do not have some more approiately sized models.

MikeM we have been pleased with the Summit refrigerator freezer we installed to replace a Norcold which never worked very well. You might check them out at Home | Summit Appliance . The FF874SS which was sized to fit into the same enclosure as the Norcold has been replaced by FF1085SS a 10 cuft model but with a height of 59.5" which on the Manatee would mean losing the lower cabinet storage. Anyway just a thought, the Summit is quiet, frost-free and was a great choice over the standard marine priced units.

timjet said:

My Norcold installed new on boat in '98 is still working extremely and inefficiently well.

Click to expand...

That's a good summation. Other than the short period a few years ago when we thought it was failing, our Norcold has performed as advertised but it is definitely not the most efficient unit on the planet as far as power usage is concerned. Better efficiency would be one advantage of upgrading to the Isotherm we'd picked out but we decided to keep the Norcold as long as it was willing to run properly.

HiDHo said:

MikeM we have been pleased with the Summit refrigerator freezer we installed to replace a Norcold which never worked very well. You might check them out at Home | Summit Appliance . The FF874SS which was sized to fit into the same enclosure as the Norcold has been replaced by FF1085SS a 10 cuft model but with a height of 59.5" which on the Manatee would mean losing the lower cabinet storage. Anyway just a thought, the Summit is quiet, frost-free and was a great choice over the standard marine priced units.

Click to expand...

Ditto here. Had a late model 8 cubic feet Nevercold, after failed was a Tundra T80. Again never cooled well. I fit the SS Summitt in about 2 years ago- and have been smiling ever since. 110 AC works great for us.


1983 Present 42 Sundeck
Twin Lehman 135's

Damn shame they (Sunfrost) do not have some more approiately sized models.

With thick insulation the interior volume would get too small for the cost

Replaced the PO Lowes mini fridge with Isotherm 195. Couldnt be more pleased.

Two sep compressors. AC/DC. Nominal amp draw. Have to keep it well ventilated.... but what compressor does not need to be well ventilated?

Here is our Summit fridge in the place where the Tundra T80 was.


1983 Present 42 Sundeck
Twin Lehman 135's

"but what compressor does not need to be well ventilated?"

Any water cooled unit , or fitted with a freon keel cooler.

Our engine driven Eutetic set up has sea water engine intake for coolant . and lives in the engine room with no decrease in cooling capacity.

Custom and pricy tho.

FF said:

"but what compressor does not need to be well ventilated?"

Any water cooled unit , or fitted with a freon keel cooler.

Our engine driven Eutetic set up has sea water engine intake for coolant . and lives in the engine room with no decrease in cooling capacity.

Custom and pricy tho.

Click to expand...

Very cool. I didn't even know that existed for refrigeration.

Engine driven and sea water cooled refrigeration is wonderful, although generally expensive. One downside is that you do not have refrigeration on the hard. For some of us this is an issue.

Bay Pelican said:

Engine driven and sea water cooled refrigeration is wonderful, although generally expensive. One downside is that you do not have refrigeration on the hard. For some of us this is an issue.

Click to expand...

We had a great cold plate system on our last boat. 1/2 hp DC compressor that pulled down 3 plates, 2 in the freezer and 1 in the fridge. Run time was less than 3 hours per day in tropics and 1.5 hours in the PNW with ice cream. When we were on the hard one time, we plumbed the system into one of the 75 gallon water tanks. We had an algae boom when the water got up 100 degrees. Starting dumping ice in. No help. It sounded like a good idea.

I've been kicking around the idea of replacing my 2 Summit 3 drawer units with a custom built fridge/freezer, heavily insulated, maybe 4 to 6 inches. I have the holding plate/compressor unit from a deck freezer, its keel cooled and would work great. I can build the enclosure to fit the available space and even with lots of insulation still have more capacity. This is normal stuff on sailboats but us yachties general dont do it. Has anyone here done it or have anything like it ?

I have seen custom built holding plate with engine cooling on a couple of cruising motor boats/trawlers in the Caribbean. In two cases they were full time live aboards cruising at anchor all year. Expensive. More of the energy benefit came from the insulation, not the engine driven compressor. I looked at the economics when I replaced my system and decided to go with decently insulated Isotherm units with Danfoss compressor and spend the extra money on an additional solar panel.

kulas44 said:

I've been kicking around the idea of replacing my 2 Summit 3 drawer units with a custom built fridge/freezer, heavily insulated, maybe 4 to 6 inches. I have the holding plate/compressor unit from a deck freezer, its keel cooled and would work great. I can build the enclosure to fit the available space and even with lots of insulation still have more capacity. This is normal stuff on sailboats but us yachties general dont do it. Has anyone here done it or have anything like it ?

Click to expand...

Mike wasn't just into custom rudders for his boat but he enjoyed his custom fridge/freezer too.

http://www.mvfullstep.com/Refer1.html

Larry M said:

We had a great cold plate system on our last boat. 1/2 hp DC compressor that pulled down 3 plates, 2 in the freezer and 1 in the fridge. Run time was less than 3 hours per day in tropics and 1.5 hours in the PNW with ice cream. When we were on the hard one time, we plumbed the system into one of the 75 gallon water tanks. We had an algae boom when the water got up 100 degrees. Starting dumping ice in. No help. It sounded like a good idea.

Click to expand...

I saw a great idea a few years ago, a commercial fish boat was on the hard and needed to run a genset in the yard.. they found a old aluminum skiff and had it sitting under the boat.. they filled it with water and had it aligned so the water out of the exhaust dumped back into the skiff when the generator was running... recycling the water. The aluminum boat shed enough heat to make it work.. fisherman engineering at its best.
HOLLYWOOD

I like it!

Mule said:

I am not sure how you figure a 110v volt Refer uses less current. The Summit, on their website states that their 18 cu ft model draws 1.5 amps @ 120 volts. Convert that to watts. 120x1.5= 180 watts. Convert that to 12volt amps.
180/12= 15 amps, compensate for inversion and resistance losses at 10% you are at 16.5 amps at 12volts. Modern 12volt units run at about 1/2 that.

A home refer may be the ticket for your boating style but there are vast differences in amps drawn while running.

Click to expand...

Mule: you may be missing the difference in cycle-on times. A typical (Vitrifrigo/Isotherm) 12v 'marine' refer cycles on 50% of the time. The superior insulation of a domestic 110/240v model reduces cycle-on times to 25%. So the quoted draw may be somewhat greater, but that is overwhelmed by halving the cycle-on time.

Aquabelle said:

Mule: you may be missing the difference in cycle-on times. A typical (Vitrifrigo/Isotherm) 12v 'marine' refer cycles on 50% of the time. The superior insulation of a domestic 110/240v model reduces cycle-on times to 25%. So the quoted draw may be somewhat greater, but that is overwhelmed by halving the cycle-on time.

Click to expand...

Read post number 9. I did not miss it, just did not know run time. Run time is a very important factor. Should have mentioned that earlier. The FF mentioned Sun Frost reaaaaaallllly looks good until you get to the sticker.

"One downside is that you do not have refrigeration on the hard. For some of us this is an issue".

The Adler Barbour folks made their living creating Eutetic reefers starting in about 1960.

Mike Adler patented the concept of having 2 freon circuits in each plate,

The big coils were mechanically driven the small coil was fed with a 1/5 hp dockside 120v can style unit.

The advantage of a mechanical drive is time. A good car air cond compressor will go 10HP on a warm box , which slows down a lot at the 1/2 frozen point as the ice on the coil is an insulator.

WE could go 4 days (chose 3 for safety) on 2 hours of engine on time ., when not moving.

On a larger boat a large scroll style compressor might be operated for the first hour of noisemaker time , and reduces load and load shedding used for the remainder of the cooling period.

6 inches of insulation is the point where more is seldom much better.

In the day ( 60s 70s)freon blown urathane was the best , today?

Theoretically vacuum is best , but it has had too many failures as side wall insulation.

I used a Kill-A-Watt meter on my old 110v refrigerator/freezer. I have an inline meter on my current Isotherm ac/dc units with Danfoss compressors. Less than half, possibly 33-40% of old 110v units.

Just ran across this if anyone is interested.

Portable Refrigerator/Freezer - AC/Dc - 1.7 Cuft - 52 Qt-pplmotorhomes.com