Opinions on the Refridgerator

[Bad Obsession]

How do you feel about Refirdgeration? Is it a must, a necessary evil, a huge battery drain, or do you not have it and don't want it?My current boat doesn't have refridgeration. I have an icebox which insures that I have to make land every few days to keep it cool. I really don't intend to add refridgeration to the boat because it is expensive and I would rather just get ice since I coastal cruise.At the dock I don't leave my electronics on for many reasons. I know that other boats that were in my marina that have refridgeration and leave them on had nasty powerbills this past year (we didn't even get a warning that they would be sending out powerbills because they have never charged for this before and it was like 8 months of usage).

 

[Dennis W.]

Refrgeration

I have refrigeration on my boat and although I don't consider it a necessity,I do love having it. I use 40ah per day to maintain 38* in the fridge and 15* in the freezer. Fresh and frozen food and cold beer on the hook for two hours on the gen per day. I do not leave any electric on when away from my boat.

 

[seadaddler]

Love it

I guess I am spoiled having front load ref on my new 36 hunter,last year being my first year with this boat and also first year atmarina in greenport NY which does not charge for electric,I keep the refon all the time while at the dock and it auto switches over to 12 voltand leave it on all the time while sailing.We use the boat a lot being retired and its great having cold beverageand food,I keep the boat loaded up with all provisions,I sleep on the boat a lot at the dock and over nighters at different locations and need my coffee in the morning,we also cook most meals on board and occasionally eat out.I don't think my wife would spend as much time on the boat if it were notfor the comforts and ref that we have on our boat.To each his or her own way of enjoying life and their boat.Nick

 

[caguy]

Don't have one don't need one, but...

when I had my Westy I had a refrig that worked on 12v, 120v, and propane. When traveling and the motor was charging the battery we ran it on 12v. When in a campsite and 120v was availble we ran it on that. When in the woods we used propane. The amount of gas used was very small. Isn't there something similar for boats?

 

[Stu Jackson]

Almost answered your own question

It all depends on how you use your boat. And for both, good insulation is important to reduce load on either the ice or the electrical system.I've had a running discussion for the past ten years with folks about leaving their fridges on all week or turning them off, and just earlier today weighed in on the mooring fellow about solar panels to keep his fridge working all week.We're kinda in the middle camp - we use our electrical Adler Barbour cold machine when we're on the boat, leave it off when we're not, because it's simply gonna last longer (it's 21 years old already! - and still working just fine). We also don't leave our boat plugged in when we're not there. If we need cold stuff or food or condiments we bring it with us and have plenty of food onboard at all times anyway. The fridge cools off in half an hour in our neck of the woods, would take longer where it's much hotter all the time.Others like to use their boats differently and enjoy all the comforts of home, like seedaddler explained.Others I know who have fridges never turn them on for daysails, and either bring ice for their icebox/fridge "holes", or coolers.There's no "right or wrong way," it's up to you - your boat, your choice.

 

[tcbro]

We have it and we use it

We have a 1 1/2 hour drive to the boat so we put our provisions in an ice chest to transport them. We keep the ice chest cool with two 1/2gal. milk jugs of frozen water. We do not keep the refrig running when we are not there so we unload the ice chest into the refrig and turn it on when we arrive. We put the ice jugs next to the freezer. If we are away from shore power (we usually are)we run the refrig during the day. This keeps stuff cold in the heat of the day and while everybody is in & out of it. We shut the refrig off when the anchor light goes on and turn it back on in the morning. The ice in the refrig is enough to keep everything cold over night when temps are usually lower and nobody is opening up the refrig. The little bit of ice that melted overnight is re-frozen during the day and the cycle starts all over again. At the end of the cruise we still have ice to put in the ice chest for the ride home. This method helps keep our power consumption down by not running overnight. We also treat ourselves with "freezer pops", sometimes called "push-up pops". They are basically flavored, sweetened water sealed in a flexible plastic tube. Cut the top off and squeeze the bottom to push the frozen juice up. The freeze/thaw cycle doesn't hurt them the way it would hurt real ice cream and some brands are quite tasty with natural flavors and a minimum of added sugar. The kids from our club hang around our boat on hot days!BTW, I was once told that the difference between a boat and a yacht is that the yacht has the ability to make it's own ice. I guess we have a yacht!caguy, if I remember correctly, propane refrigeraters are very fussy about being upright. If the small flame is not straight up and down it will not work. If this is so, perhaps the rocking motion of a boat makes these ineffective.

 

[Joseph Shirley]

My experience is similar to seadaddler

I have a refrigerator, A freezer, and two ice boxes. The refrigerator and freezer are stocked and on all the time. If I go down to the boat to work I have the comforts of home. If I meet someone on the dock or get a call from my family that they would like to go out or go somewhere, I'm ready to go.Joe S

 

[Mike B]

Have and it use it

We have a fridge and freezer on our B361 and use both of them 365 days a year. Always have food in them and never shut them off. We spend every weekend throughout the year on her. We eat on board quite a bit, especially in the summer, so we consider it a necessity. Could we do with just ice boxes? Yes, but why would or should we? It's all in the budget.Mike

 

[Levin]

Front loading vs Top Loading

Hello all... So I have a rant that just slightly off topic... but first let me answer the going question. Yes I have a refrigerator on board and yes I use it a lot (actually being a live-aboard I use it constantly, and wouldn't have chosen a boat without one). In my mind a boat is a "home that moves" and having all the creature comforts of a home is very important. Now for my rant... I'm annoyed that boat manufactures like Hunter and Catalina have started going to these front loading "mini-fridges" in their newer model boats. These mini-fridges (like what you would find in a hotel room) are very small and don't hold nearly as much as the top-loading models Personally my Hunter 340 has a top loading refrigerator and I love the way it works and all the space it has inside. This is especially important if you are a live-aboard like myself and really use your refrigerator as it was intended to be used. I'll admit that the drawback to top loading refrigerators is that you have to dig for things on the bottom but many of the more modern boats with this design have also incorporated a front loading door to help you get to stuff on the bottom (ex: Catalina 350) so that you can get the best of both worlds.  Anyway I'm beginning to get "in-zone" for a new boat here in the next couple of years and in looking around I have noticed more and more production boats are coming with these mini-fridges rather than the top loading models... and it has forced me to eliminate quite a few boats from the list (ex: The new Catalina 375 looks like a great boat until I noticed that it too has this mini-fridge problem)....Ok end rant...Take care,-Levin

 

[seadaddler]

Propane & Boats

I had propane on all my RV's but they need to vent out the topand also a bigger outside vent on back side of the ref.So I think maybe it's a safety thing that the flame and pilot would always be on inside the boat may not be a good idea.The draw back of small front load is the small size,but it surebeats digging to the bottom of a top load,top load do keep colder better.My new 36 had a extra option of a separate freezer and most of the other hunters have separate freezer also.Nick

 

[sailaway78]

Best of both worlds, sort of

I currently use a little mini office fridge. 2.7 cf. Also have a large ice box. I use the ice box when out for a day or three. If going on longer trips, use the fridge. I run it through an inverter, and it is pretty energy efficient. It draws only 9 amps when running, and is running approx. 20% of the time, on the hottest days. This works out to approx. 45 ah per day. With 450 ah house bank, it isn't a major draw on my power supply. On the to do list is to add a couple of inches of insulation to the ice box, then take the little fridge apart and build a unit out of it for the ice box. I simply do not have the big bucks needed for a real marine fridge. They are expensive, and you can buy the little office fridges for under 50 bucks.

 

[Steve Dion]

Would not consider a boat without it!

Everytime we get something new on the boat that my wife likes she says, "that is the best thing we ever did to the boat".Well the reefer is one of those additions. We installed an Isotherm SP. Our box is very well insulated and power consumption seems to be minimal.It is nice to have a cool drink waiting for you when you get there on Friday night. We keep a lot of stuff in the reefer that we would otherwise have to haul back and forth.

 

[Benny17441]

It is a necessity.

These are some of the reasons why I maintain a refrigerator on board.1) Space in boats is always at a premium. A refrigerator can accomodate more food in a smaller space as it does not have to be more than half filled with ice.2) Provisioning a cooler requires for everything to be brought aboard plus the ice and then everything taken out at the end of trip. With a refrigerator all those things like mayo, ketchup, mustard, salad dressing, syroups, butter and some beer can be kept aboard facilitating provisioning.3) A cooler requires planning, filling and freezing water jugs, pre-cooking and freezing meals and scheduling meals according to how perishable they may be. With a refrigerator you may rely less on pre-cooking and keep your meats frozen or at a temperature that inhibits spoilage. You get to eat more of what you may feel like eating rather than what's next. I have taken steaks aboard that were not consumed and were returned to our home frezzer. 4) A cooler is wet and some items become soggy. A refrigerator provides dry low temperatures which best preserve some perishables.5) There is nothing better than going to the boat on a whim and getting there and having a cold beer waiting for you. 6) I don't like getting my hands numb from the cold while hunting for an item under the ice. With a refrigerator you open the lid look in and grab. 7) An last but not least, the Admiral likes it better.

 

[Ross]

I don't have a reefer but I have a pretty good ice box.

I do a lot of home canning so the boat stays provisioned with meat and canned fruit and some veggies. I/we prefer fresh veggies and we don't go out for much more than a week before we make port. I consider water as more important than refrigeration so filling and freezing jugs is not a hardship.

 

[higgs]

I 'll weigh in

i coastal cruised for many years with an ice box and never saw the need for a reefer. My present boat has one and it is nice, but not a necessity. I do leave it on all the time in order to keep condiments, hot dogs, bread on board. I am on my boat nearly every day, so the reefer is nice.One option for drinks and condiments is a peltier reefer. Very inexpensive and do not draw a lot of power, but they only get things something like 30 degrees below ambient temp.About the surprise bill from the Marina: I would guess that if one legally challenged the surprise bill, the marina would lose - unless it had, in the contract, provisions about leaving stuff on all the time. Past practice is type of "implied contract" that cannot be changed w/o notice. I once underwent something similar and contacted a lawyer who told me this.

 

[seadaddler]

Adding Ref

We all agree that yes we could do with out ref ,it's just a lot more work using a cooler or water jugs frozen and carrying provision'soff and on the boat but why all that trouble.I do keep gallon water jugs on and off the boat for fresh water drinkingand coffee and some use it for when running low on tank water for showers.But if you have shore power and spend a lot of time on the boat than there'snothing like having cold beer and food at your disposal is fantastic.For those who have a ice box and want to convert it to a ref you can add a12v water cooled cold plate without spending a lot of money,My 290 hunterdid not come with ref only a ice box and they the dealer added a unit that was not that much $$$$ and did not use that much power.I am not sure who made it but had a plate mounted to the under water hullto help cooling and the 12v unit next to the ice box with a cold plate for ref and small freezer section in the top loading ice box same as ref.Nick