Let's talk deep freezers

Going full time and will need a deep freezer. We have plenty of room. Any suggestions or recommendations? What about power and consumption?

What boat?

I have 2. The Dometic runs on DC and A/C. It has a freezer section and a little pocket hole that does not freeze. Good for milk etc.

The other freezer is a 5cf chest I bought at lowes and run on an inverter.

I've spent a lot of time on your boat with the previous owner. Where did you put two freezers?

I'm having trouble locating a Dometic freezer only. What model is yours?

Crime Pays said:

I'm having trouble locating a Dometic freezer only. What model is yours?

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I'm not ASD, but I can say that most of the Dometic (and other) "portable" units can be run as either a freezer or a refrigerator (but not both simultaneously unless you get a special one that can do that*). So the 40, 50, 110, etc. single compartment ones can be either a freezer or a refrigerator (you set the temp you want).

The reason the little "well" does not freeze is that the walls of that compartment are only plastic (the other walls are the cooling coils) and plus it's over the compressor. If you are running it as a fridge, that area is still colder than ambient, but not as cold as the rest of the fridge.

Note that they will not all get down to the same temp. For example my Dometic CF Series with the Danfoss/Secop compressor (vintage 2015 but they still make them now) only goes to 0ºF; whereas the Dometic CFX versions (they use their own compressor if I remember correctly) will go down to -8ºF

*For example Dometic CFX75 or CFX95 have two compartments and you can have one freezer/one refrigerator, or two of the same -- they only have one compressor but two thermostats (and some sort of valve).

I'm leaning towards a 7 cubic foot home style chest freezer. We have plenty of room and according to the internet, it should draw less than 500 watts when running. I'm thinking a well-insulated freezer will not run more than an hour or two a day. Plus, for $75 I can take the 5-year extended warranty.

We have an inexpensive front loading AC freezer on our boat. It is not on an inverter, it just gets power whenever we run the generator or are on shore power. In the summer, that is 6 to 8 hours a day as we use the air conditioner at night. In the colder months, it is perhaps two hours a day.


I've considered putting it on a little stand alone inverter, but honestly, if you only open it once or maybe twice a day, it keeps stuff frozen with no issues. Even bait. The fuller it is, the better it does.


I have also considered adding a layer of insulation to the outside of the box, but have not bothered with it yet.

Sea Freeze out of Bellingham, Wa is the only way I would go. I have been through 3 boats in the last 30 years but only one Sub zero 12v freezer all this time(it has followed me from boat to boat). The boat has lost power but I have never lost any food in the Sea Freeze.

Sea Freeze of America - Custom Marine Refrigeration, Deck Freezers, Cold Plates

Crime Pays said:

I've spent a lot of time on your boat with the previous owner. Where did you put two freezers?

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5cf on the sundeck, the Dometic in the salon. Wife uses it as her chair table.

Bog standard bar fridge sized 4 draw front loading Kmart special for us.
Cost about $100 on sale 10 years ago
Works a treat
Uses a lot less power than the big Samsung fridge freezer

Small household Kenmore chest freezer on our boat. 15 years,4-5 months straight every year and going strong. Runs off our inverter, genset or shore power.

Tator

I've been very please with the GE chest freezers. They are inexpensive to buy, and remarkably energy efficient.


For power consumption, go look at the EnergyStar web site from the EPA, and look at the consumption figures for the various freezers you are considering. I have found those published numbers to be spot on. They list KWH consumer per year, so divide by 365 to get the daily consumption. And since many boats track power in Ah, further divide the daily KWH figure by your battery voltage and you will get a good prediction of how many Ah the freezer will consume.

Also a sea freeze fan. 24v, very efficient. Built in.

Dometic CFX3-100 99L Portable Fridge/Freezer. You can get all freezer or fridge or a unit that has two separate compartments that will do either fridge or freezer.

Unit is both 110AC and 12v/24v. I have both AC end DC wired so if AC fails it will run on DC.

Had unit on Flybridge almost 5 years and it has worked flawlessly. Highly recommend. Search on Google multiple suppliers available.

We have a small 7 cubic foot GE chest freezer and a Waco that runs on AC or DC. We have a Northern Lights generator so power consumption is not an issue.

We used a $125.00 Frigidaire 5 cu ft chest freezer for 20 years. Ran off the inverter and kept contents at 0-5 deg F 100% of the time. Average daily power consumption was 100 amps at 12v. (Made 6 trays of ice daily. For making ice we used the plastic no-spill ice trays with lids - OXO, $9.99 ea at Amazon.)

Power consumption

MOJO said:

We used a $125.00 Frigidaire 5 cu ft chest freezer for 20 years. Ran off the inverter and kept contents at 0-5 deg F 100% of the time. Average daily power consumption was 100 amps at 12v. (Made 6 trays of ice daily. For making ice we used the plastic no-spill ice trays with lids - OXO, $9.99 ea at Amazon.)

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100 daily amp-hours? Meaning average 4.1 amp draw over 24 hours? Many of us are looking to solar to enable fridge/freezer. This seems in the range of a decent solar panel array. Thanks.

I built my own fridge and a freezer in my boat about 12 years ago. Using modules. They cost me around 1K each. The advantage of building my own, was to use efficient insulation (up to 6") and make them as efficient as possible. The added mini computer fans keeping the air circulated helped immensely. They were far more efficient than the stand up unit I had before. Have a look at the units like these https://www.westmarine.com/buy/isotherm--compact-2501-refrigeration-system-kit--14995476?recordNum=3

ARB fridge/freezers are the way. Built for the outdoors. We have the 80 qt. size. They are AC/DC and use Dan Foss compressors. Never looked back.

https://arbusa.com/portable-fridge-freezers/

Another option is to build one in under a seat. I put a 12 cu foot freezer under a settee in a lower salon in a pilot house sailboat. I first put in vapor barrier, then l layer of foil. Next blocks of my 6" thick closed cell foam insulation, pour in/spray in foam to fill any cracks. The top had double gaskets--one at the level of the bottom of the settee top, the other at the level of the inner fiberglassed compartment. I built the fiberglass tub in place. The freezer (and refer) were run off a dual compressor eutectic holding plate (Dole galvanized plates). About 2 hours a day run time, of either a Sanyo compressor off the main engine, or a York compressor off a 110V AC motor. We had the refrigerator running on the same system--again about 12 cu feet.

tiltrider1 said:

Sea Freeze out of Bellingham, Wa is the only way I would go. I have been through 3 boats in the last 30 years but only one Sub zero 12v freezer all this time(it has followed me from boat to boat). The boat has lost power but I have never lost any food in the Sea Freeze.

Sea Freeze of America - Custom Marine Refrigeration, Deck Freezers, Cold Plates

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Ditto on Sea Freeze in Bham. They built a custom 12 volt only, 6 cu ft freezer to fit in a cabinet, which turned out great. Has 4" walls and uses little power. I also had them convert a Kenmore 12 cu ft household AC refer to 12 volt only which also turned out well and reduced battery usage dramatically . Highly recommended.

bill.kimbell said:

100 daily amp-hours? Meaning average 4.1 amp draw over 24 hours? Many of us are looking to solar to enable fridge/freezer. This seems in the range of a decent solar panel array. Thanks.

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Both the refrigerator and the freezer each drew about 100 amps per day. But, we had a 1,000 watt solar array on the roof of MOJO (ten 100 watt panels). It would generate about 300 amps per day even at Rhode Island latitudes. Rarely ran the generator!

We have an inexpensive chest freezer from Home Depot. Cools down quickly and holds well. We plug it in when on shore power or running the generator, or can use the inverter if needed. Only takes a couple hours a day to keep it below freezing. It's on the bridge in the sun so we do have a cover made from a reflective "space blanket" that slips over the top. DeFever Forum has a doc that details how to retrofit a household freezer for a marine environment.

Deep freezer

We have an Expedition. This link will take you to it. Very energy economical.

https://www.snomasterusa.com/product/expedition-series-bdc-95-stainless-steel-acdc-fridgefreezer/

We run it dc 100%. We have 2190W of solar power with 600aH lithium batteries.

Best thing to do and I have well and truly proved this being a long term long range cruiser is if possible buy 2 domestic freezers one chest one draw type for ease if access chest is for long term large items run on a inverter we are lucky having a 8kva 240volt 48 volt victron Quattro seamless operation 24/7 for years now leave both running either making ice for eskys or simply reduce there volume with empty poly boxes I prefer freezing plastic 2 litre coke bottles for eskys, and the added bonus is icy cold water, I have run this system 24/7 365 for over 5 years now and it has been flawless and I have the redundancy of 2 freezers side by side and my solar system runs freezers and fridges and ice maker's when not living onboard , I never turn them off.

I have a chest freezer you see every day at lowes or home depot on the boat.

Whirlpool I think.

Had it for half a decade and paid around $250 for it.

It sits up on the fly bridge, winter and summer.

Agree all the other stuff is over priced camping stuff, my big freezers draw like 120watts when fully loaded and cycle on and off bugger all when cycled off they are consuming zero ......only way to go IMHO if you don’t have space make some because it will be worth every square inch

Settee Freezer

thataway said:

Another option is to build one in under a seat. I put a 12 cu foot freezer under a settee in a lower salon in a pilot house sailboat. I first put in vapor barrier, then l layer of foil. Next blocks of my 6" thick closed cell foam insulation, pour in/spray in foam to fill any cracks. The top had double gaskets--one at the level of the bottom of the settee top, the other at the level of the inner fiberglassed compartment. I built the fiberglass tub in place. The freezer (and refer) were run off a dual compressor eutectic holding plate (Dole galvanized plates). About 2 hours a day run time, of either a Sanyo compressor off the main engine, or a York compressor off a 110V AC motor. We had the refrigerator running on the same system--again about 12 cu feet.

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So glad you told about the freezer under the settee. We are planning on getting another freezer to have the room when we travel since we will be living on the boat full time. This was one of our thoughts to put it under the settee. There used to be one there, but the previous owner said they had trouble with mold on the cushions. Have you had any trouble with that? Thanks

Muirgen Afloat said:

So glad you told about the freezer under the settee. We are planning on getting another freezer to have the room when we travel since we will be living on the boat full time. This was one of our thoughts to put it under the settee. There used to be one there, but the previous owner said they had trouble with mold on the cushions. Have you had any trouble with that? Thanks

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Mold should only be an issue if you're getting condensation. If everything is insulated well enough to avoid condensation, then there shouldn't be a mold problem. Making sure there's a little bit of ventilation in there somewhere will help too.