12v freezer

[hilaryb]

Does anyone know where I would get hold of a sensibly priced new/secondhand 12 v freezer for narrowboat?

[by'eck]

Does anyone know where I would get hold of a sensibly priced new/secondhand 12 v freezer for narrowboat?

 

Sadly an oxymoron.

[jim and pat dalton]

Running a shoreline 12v freezer, not sensibly priced tho

[Phil Ambrose]

Hi Hilaryb, sadly 12v freezers do not come cheap, however if you consider that to produce one they have to take a 240v freezer and rip it's guts out to replace them with 12v kit. This process is expensive and cooupled with the fact that sales of 12v kit per year probably only runs into hundreds while 240v kit numbers in hundred of thousands, guess you get the picture now.

 

BUT I for one (along with others) bit the bullet and bought a 110litre larder fridge and a 80litre freezer about 10 years ago and they have performed faultlessly. Living on a boat does not mean camping and for us the extra expense paid dividends. We do'nt have to worry about using an inverter, there is no point in taking perfectly good 12v electricity and turning it into 240v. Suggest you look at Shoreline stuff.

 

My opinion only, others will disagree.

 

Phil

 

edited for fat fingers

Edited September 14, 2013 by Phil Ambrose

[Ex- Member]

We looked in to this some time ago, I recall the ridiculous prices. Extremely inefficient, very little choice, and couldn't even find an A rated unit let alone an A+ energy rated unit either in 12 or even 240v.

 

There are quite a few portable units, but again extremely expensive low capacity and very inefficient.

 

Also we found out that manufacturers energy ratings on 12v freezers were highly exaggerated anyway, I recall all their testing is based on the volts available in a fully charged battery. A battery with a lower SOC ie less volts makes the unit much less efficient. It turns out a rating equivalent to 2.5 amps in reality is more likely to be 3.5 if run at lower voltages.

 

We gave up, and surprisingly haven't really missed the freezer. Well except for frozen peas LOL

[Phil Ambrose]

We looked in to this some time ago, I recall the ridiculous prices. Extremely inefficient, very little choice, and couldn't even find an A rated unit let alone an A+ energy rated unit either in 12 or even 240v.

 

There are quite a few portable units, but again extremely expensive low capacity and very inefficient.

 

Also we found out that manufacturers energy ratings on 12v freezers were highly exaggerated anyway, I recall all their testing is based on the volts available in a fully charged battery. A battery with a lower SOC ie less volts makes the unit much less efficient. It turns out a rating equivalent to 2.5 amps in reality is more likely to be 3.5 if run at lower voltages.

 

We gave up, and surprisingly haven't really missed the freezer. Well except for frozen peas LOL

 

 

 

 

Hey Julynian, you want frozen peas? I have loads, and ice cream, bread, meat, etc etc ad nauseum. We only shop once a week, no local shops so Mr "T" delivers it to us and if we get snowed in no problem we can go 2 or 3 weeks and when we cruise we have no problem feeding ourselves as we carry it with us, shops are very thin on the ground in the Fens.

 

Phil

Edited September 14, 2013 by Phil Ambrose

[Ex- Member]

 

We looked in to this some time ago, I recall the ridiculous prices. Extremely inefficient, very little choice, and couldn't even find an A rated unit let alone an A+ energy rated unit either in 12 or even 240v.

 

There are quite a few portable units, but again extremely expensive low capacity and very inefficient.

 

Also we found out that manufacturers energy ratings on 12v freezers were highly exaggerated anyway, I recall all their testing is based on the volts available in a fully charged battery. A battery with a lower SOC ie less volts makes the unit much less efficient. It turns out a rating equivalent to 2.5 amps in reality is more likely to be 3.5 if run at lower voltages.

 

We gave up, and surprisingly haven't really missed the freezer. Well except for frozen peas LOL

 

 

 

 

Hey Julynian, you want frozen peas? I have loads, and ice cream, bread, meat, etc etc ad nauseum. We only shop once a week, no local shops so Mr "T" delivers it to us and if we get snowed in no problem we can go 2 or 3 weeks and when we cruise we have no problem feeding ourselves as we carry it with us, shops are very thin on the ground in the Fens.

 

Phil

 

 

Appreciated, fortunately we're close to towns and do have a car available.

 

I did forget Ice Cream LOL, but I'm supposed to be on a diet, so no freezer is helping with that.

 

TBH though we would like one. We like to cook large meals, eat some freeze some. Lynn also makes gorgeous soups in a big 6 litre P/cooker, again slurp some freeze the rest, I could go on, so I suppose we are missing one really. If we could find something really efficient we would certainly go for it at a reasonable price. Unfortunately nothing out there at the moment seems to exist.

 

I suspect your's was well built and a good quality base unit used, hence the good use you're getting out of it. I doubt that same quality is around today, and I'm not risking a grand to find out LOL

 

Fresh peas do not taste as good as frozen, that's for sure LOL

[Phil Ambrose]

Wow a grand? Are they really that price,I can see why people fight shy of buying them, when we got ours direct from Sureline the fridge and the freezer cost about £800 delivered. The base models are LEC and they are fitted with Danfos compressors.

Phil

[by'eck]

Look at Shoreline TF35 34 litre freezer - £439 or less, or its bigger brother the RU5010 with 74 litres - £559.

 

If space is an issue a fridge with freezer compartment may be a better option such as such as the Shoreline RR5010 fridge with 14 litre (small but useful) freezer compartment running at -12°C.

[lexicon]

I have a new shoreline fridge freezer the model with a 28 litre freezer with seperate door in the top. Very good and found to be much more efficient than 240v fridge I was using before.

[Phil Ambrose]

Yeah! That's what we want to hear, too often people knock 12v fridges and freezers and I often feel like a pariah for having them so thanks for the comment Lexicon.

 

Phil

[ditchcrawler]

Hi Hilaryb, sadly 12v freezers do not come cheap, however if you consider that to produce one they have to take a 240v freezer and rip it's guts out to replace them with 12v kit. This process is expensive and cooupled with the fact that sales of 12v kit per year probably only runs into hundreds while 240v kit numbers in hundred of thousands, guess you get the picture now.

 

 

But do they, when I was fitting my boat out LEC would supply their fridges in a 12/24 volt format straight to the public at a reasonable price. By the time I had finished the fitout and wanted to buy one they they told me they now only supplied one company in the UK with them. So LEC were and maybe still are building low voltage fridges so there was and maybe still isn't no need to rip the guts out of anything. Things may have changed in the last 12 years.

[Phil Ambrose]

The story I was told differs from the one you have related, the truth is in there somewhere but the fact remains that if you want one it will cost you. Though having been in Engineering for a good number of years I know that low production runs cost a lot more than large ones but I'm happy to be corrected.

Phil

[Pykebird]

I run both a 12v fridge and a 12v freezer, brilliant bits of kit, worth their weight in gold.

[ditchcrawler]

The story I was told differs from the one you have related, the truth is in there somewhere but the fact remains that if you want one it will cost you. Though having been in Engineering for a good number of years I know that low production runs cost a lot more than large ones but I'm happy to be corrected.

Phil

Well the bit about LEC supplying them direct to the public in the past is fact because I contacted them when I started fitting Harnser. Its a fact that when I tried to order one 3 years later they told me they only supplied one company in the UK. This was with 12/24 volt units. I don't know if they still supply those units today or not.

[Guest]

Does anyone know where I would get hold of a sensibly priced new/secondhand 12 v freezer for narrowboat?

 

As has been said for various reasons 12v freezers (and fridges) do not come cheap.

 

The fridge and freezer on The Dog House are Frigonautica and both of stainless construction and have proven very reliable (that's put the kiss of death on them).

 

They both get down to temp, in a very short space of time of being switched on and very easy to keep clean. My only criticism is the freezer can be quite noisy in the dead of night, but I suspect this is common to a lot of makes.

 

If you could find a used one it would be a good inexpensive buy.

[Phil Ambrose]

Hi Ditchcrawler I was not doubting the veracity of your post, I think you are correct in your assumption that things had changed in the last 12 years afterall I got mine about 10 years so your statement seems true.

 

Phil

[hilaryb]

Thanks everyone.... seems that unless I want to spend a large amount of money the 12v freezer is out. Wondering now whether to get a 240v as am in a marina on shoreline most of the time.

[smileypete]

If you do go 240V look for one with simple non electronic controls, which should be more inverter friendly.

 

Lieberr do reasonably decent ones, some of their fridges have a reasonable size 4* ice box.

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~

[Daiboy]

I have a 3 way ancient looking fridge with a small freezer compartment (enough for ice cubes!!) and I use it on the gas setting. Very efficient as I only use a 15kg gas bottle per month and gas cooker and gas water heater. Any views.

[Pykebird]

I have a 3 way ancient looking fridge with a small freezer compartment (enough for ice cubes!!) and I use it on the gas setting. Very efficient as I only use a 15kg gas bottle per month and gas cooker and gas water heater. Any views.

As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! I personally couldn't go down this route, but that doesn't mean anyone else can't. If it suits you , then great.