I know this has been discussed in the past, but has anyone installed refrigeration on their boat? I'm looking at an Adler Barbour set up and I know that insulation of the box is a good first step to minimize power consumption. One question I have is does anyone know the ice box capacity in cubic feet? This sounds like it might be a question for Ed. The largest compressor capacity seems to be for a 15 cubic foot space. Just under that is a model for 9 CF. Appreciate any advice from the group. Also as to brand, reliability, etc.
Sorry for the late response. I was on vacation in the backwoods of Maine for 2 weeks with no internet.
The OEM icebox has maximum dimensions of about 24" x 24" x 24". This puts an upper limit of 8 cu ft on it. Because of its irregular non-cubic shape, the reality is something less. I seem to recall reading somewhere that it is actually about 6 cu ft, but I can't find the reference, so don't take that as gospel.
The insulation on the original box is wholly inadequate, especially considering it is adjacent to the engine compartment. I added 1 1/2" of foil-faced rigid isocyanurate foam insulation to the engine compartment side of that wall and it helped a lot. I also have a slab of 1" rigid foam in a felt sleeve that I keep on top of the counter to cut down on loss thru the lid and counter. You can tell its helping because when you remove it to go into the box, the lid and countertop are cold to the touch.
I really need to inject foam all around the liner, but its way down on the priority list. Someday, I'll rip out the whole thing and rebuild it with proper insulation.
My boat came equiped with an EZ-Kold holding plate. This system claims to have the lowest amp-hour consumption of it's class, but I find that it just doesn't have enough capacity to overcome the OEM icebox's inefficiencies. Its an "overflow" type of setup, with a wall isolating a small freezer section, and a 3" clearance at the top of the wall allowing cold air to spill over into the refrigerator section. This setup works well enough for the freezer section, but the refrigerator section section stays too warm (~50 deg F), and we're forced to use ice in it anyway! But at least the ice lasts longer!
The EZ-Kold compressor sucks about 6 amps when on, and they claim it will run with about a 25% duty cycle, or about 6 hours a day. This works out to 36 Amp-Hours a day. In hot weather, I see it running more like a 33% to 50% duty cycle, so we can only run for a day or two before needing to recharge by running the engine or plugging in to shore power.