120v Apartment Fridge

[ERTF]

Does anybody have a 120v apartment sized fridge that isn't super thin on insulation in the fridge section?

 

[DavidM]

They are all thin on insulation. Nobody looks at energy consumption when buying an apartment style fridge. They look for the maximum interior volume you can get inside the external dimensions, which means little insulation.

David

 

[Dwk]

Forum member OC Diver has a documentation of his apartment fridge installation. I couldn't tell you about the insulation being thin but Ted was very pleased with the outcome. Hopefully someone will chime in and list Ted's thread. BTW, I haven't seen much of Ted posting lately, anyone heard from him?

 

[sbman]

I have an apartment sized fridge in my boat. It's a 'Magic Chef' with digital controls, a pretty basic fridge. I've had a monitor on it for a couple of months and it draws on average 800 watts per 24 hours period. The downside of it is with the digital controls, temperature settings are lost each time you turn the inverter off and on.

The energy star yearly power estimates are very close to real usage from my experience, take the energy star yearly rating and divide by 365 to get a daily usage, mine is within 50 watts per day of that number as I've measure it. You'll find most of the top freezer/bottom fridge front openers are in the 300-350 KWhr/year range, regardless of size. Side by side models tend to be higher usage.

If you are running off an inverter, you have to add in inverter losses as well of course. With the digital controls, I can't run my inverter in 'eco' mode, when the inverter goes into power saving mode, the digital controls lose their function and it never triggers the inverter to turn back on. A manual knob/dial is superior from this perspective.

 

[Lepke]

I have a full sized reefer, but in the cabinetry, it is surrounded by foam panels. It runs less often than before the foam. When you're on battery, you could put a temporary foam panel in front of the door.

The fuller the reefer is, the better it keeps temp. Less air is displaced when the door is opened.

 

[sbman]

I have a full sized reefer, but in the cabinetry, it is surrounded by foam panels. It runs less often than before the foam. When you're on battery, you could put a temporary foam panel in front of the door.

The fuller the reefer is, the better it keeps temp. Less air is displaced when the door is opened.

Some of the newer fridges are using the spent refrigerant to heat the casing of the fridge to prevent condensation. This replaces the electric heating strips they have used historically. On these types of fridges you would not want to add insulation externally as you'd be holding this heat in. My point is that looking at the energy consumption and energy saving features of various units rather than the thickness of the insulation might be a better approach for selecting a fridge.

 

[Sidclark]

I have an apartment sized fridge in my boat. It's a 'Magic Chef' with digital controls, a pretty basic fridge. I've had a monitor on it for a couple of months and it draws on average 800 watts per 24 hours period. The downside of it is with the digital controls, temperature settings are lost each time you turn the inverter off and on.

The energy star yearly power estimates are very close to real usage from my experience, take the energy star yearly rating and divide by 365 to get a daily usage, mine is within 50 watts per day of that number as I've measure it. You'll find most of the top freezer/bottom fridge front openers are in the 300-350 KWhr/year range, regardless of size. Side by side models tend to be higher usage.

If you are running off an inverter, you have to add in inverter losses as well of course. With the digital controls, I can't run my inverter in 'eco' mode, when the inverter goes into power saving mode, the digital controls lose their function and it never triggers the inverter to turn back on. A manual knob/dial is superior from this perspective.

What monitor are you using to ascertain this info? I would like to put one to use..

 

[FlyWright]

A Kill-A-Watt meter works well for monitoring power use.

https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Ele...=1&keywords=kill-a-watt&qid=1621993370&sr=8-1

My apartment size "beer and bait" fridge gets very warm on one side, which I always assumed was to dissipate the heat generated by the cooling process. On warm days, I'll run a small, low power 12V fan to ventilate the back and side. It seems to reduce the running hours.

 

[sbman]

What monitor are you using to ascertain this info? I would like to put one to use..

I'm using the Killawatt P3 as Flywright mentioned. It shows real time voltage, amps, watts and power usage over time, inexpensive and allows you to measure usage very easily and compare changes quantitively.

 

[catalinajack]

Be careful of the heat shedding design of household fridges. My boat came with two. When I had occasion to slide them out of their enclosure I found the sides almost to hot to touch. The cooling coils in those fridges were the sides so there the ability to allow heat to escape was extremely limited. I replaced them with 12-volt only Vitrifrigo units that have their cooling in the rear. I also added exhaust fans powered by the fridges' electronics to draw air out of the enclosure through vents. Even in the hottest of weather I cannot dial up the temp setting to the max without freezing delicate items such as lettuce. In any case, if that household unit is designed to shed heat at its side, it may not be a good choice.