fridges in the heat

May be of interest to some contemplating buying a camping fridge.
With temps here constantly 40 and above lately and even hitting 48+, our Engels are struggling but our Evacools are coping just fine

madtuna wrote:May be of interest to some contemplating buying a camping fridge.
With temps here constantly 40 and above lately and even hitting 48+, our Engels are struggling but our Evacools are coping just fine

gooday steve the evacool is that the big yellow ones with compressor on the side.
cheers..reg

Morning Steve,
Does your Engel have an insulation bag? Our 80L combo came with a bag which seems to help.
Made up a bag for my old yellow Engel, canvas lined with blanket material.
Have seen a few posts where members have fitted a small extraction fan to help in extreme conditions?

Admittedly haven't been out in the recent heat wave like you are experiencing, hope it proves worthwhile for you.

Peter

Go to the two dollar shop at Kalgoorlie and get a car windscreen reflection blanket. Wrap it around your fridge for extra insulation and reflection of heat.

Hold it together with stickytape or small rock. all for $2

My 50 l Waco is performing well in this heat ! Cycling a bit more for sure but the bag on does help BUT keep the vent area uncluttered for sure !

Evakool ... me personally wouldnt have any other fridge ,
I have a 45 ltr Trailblazer - great unit never had a problem with it , have had this unit for 14 yrs and its still going strong. It now resides at home as a permanent drinks fridge ( My whole property runs on Stand alone solar power ) .

I also have 2 Evakool fridge/freezers - one is a 80 ltr and the other a 35 ltr .
My 80 ltr has become my chest freezer at the moment housing fish fillets and venison . Doing it easy in this heat wave at the moment - also sits in my steel shed which gets real hot with the summer heat .
The 35 ltr sits in my Troopy for day to day use and those weekend hunts .
Evakools are great energy efficient units and best of all " Aussie made " . My 80 ltr is the white fibreglass type and the 35 ltr is the new alloy type which has just been recently released .
Two local old boy cockys got me onto evakool - they swore by them and use nothing else .... ( now these men with years of experience between them coming from the land would know ) ..

Cheers

Evakool! downunder, Had mine for years 70Ltr fibreglass the early model before they mounted the compressor on the outside.
Just a couple of little mods, like a better fuse holder and heavier lead. Very efficient.
Peter.

Yep Reg, mine the yellow one, we also have a white one. value or dollar I'd pick the yellow. It takes more of a beating too.
Peter, yep the Engel has the big bag.

Hobojoe...thanks for the tip, the windscreen protector is an excellent idea!

We just got one of the new model evakool 60 litre travelmate ones, running it as a freezer, and it uses about 2.4a/h in this hot weather, and is nice and quiet when running. At $649 brand new from the camping shop, it was to good not to try.

cheers dave

hobojoe wrote:Go to the two dollar shop at Kalgoorlie and get a car windscreen reflection blanket. Wrap it around your fridge for extra insulation and reflection of heat.

Hold it together with stickytape or small rock. all for $2

Ta hobo', good tip, my Engel does run a bit hard in the hot weather so anything will help.

davsgold wrote:We just got one of the new model evakool 60 litre travelmate ones, running it as a freezer, and it uses about 2.4a/h in this hot weather, and is nice and quiet when running. At $649 brand new from the camping shop, it was to good not to try.

cheers dave

Evakools have always been a good product. Before getting an Engel used a Evakool ice box for a few years and it worked well.

Burt Rutan did some tests on colours that keep cool in extreme heat conditions.......It was found white is the best.... Tests carried out in the Mohjave desert......USA



Keep frigerator at least a foot off the ground or higher if you can and the radiant heat from the ground is not as bad...... ie on table or chair or milk crate

Any shade is better still.

Burt Rutan is a plane designer and the manufacturer of the Virgin Galactic space craft for Branson

I use a waeco 50lt on my top end fishing trips, it runs all the time in the 4x4 while im out all day in the boat without any problems.
JonP

Waeco engel etc etc, equates to nothing its all to do with INSULATION. Engels lack decent wall insulation and a poor door seal, the waecos eva all have a thicker walls door seals are resonable.
Most cooling energy is to combat heat leakage not product cooling.
So reduce your heat transferr (leakage) thru the walls and you increase your cooling capacity (maintain rated capacity).
But another factor is condensing temp, however it not a great factor most important is insulation.
Regards
John

Another vote for EvaKool.
Have had a 47L for about 4 years and it has been fantastic.
Ice Cold beer on a 40 degree day in the middle of nowhere.
Love it.

I have a cooling problem with my fridge at 40 plus temperatures or heat. I have repaired it twice but the problem not solved. Now I think, I buy a new one and sell it.
Above Ground Pools|Want more customers..then contact us

Having trouble with fridge temps, have you tried going to a computer parts seller or computer scraper & getting a 12v computer fan a good one is the 120mm size attach it to side where hot air blows out & use it as an exhaust fan to draw more air through. You only need a cigarette plug, bit of speaker wire & the fan as the fans only draw like 0.2 of an amp so you don't need an anderson plug or anything like that.
I permanetly attached mine with zip ties & wired it into fridge electrics so no need for extra plugs or wire.

I also run 2 of these in my caravan just inside the top vent & holy dooly what a difference even at above 45deg
in the outback.

Worth a look at rather than buying new fridges that also cant handle the heat. Also plenty of insulation is never a bad thing as simple as going to hardware shop & buying that silver bubble roof insulation cheap & very very efficient same thing either tape or stitch it to shape required.

Hope this helps people out, any help is good help
Cheers Tony

If your set up allows, a wet hessian bag like the old meat safes in conjunction with the computer fan works great also keep the fridge filled to the brim.

I looked at 12v fridges last year and ended up buying the Ironman 40L icecube, man this thing is great, keeps my drinks so bloody cold. The 4WD shop I bought it from even thru in the insulation bag for free.

Yeah, hear they are good.