Turning the fridge off at night?

[number four]

is it worth turning the fridge of at night to save power?

does it realy work?

dont you have to replace the loses in the morning anyway?

can you all give me the prows and cons please.

 

am sat by the switch awating the outcome

[alan_fincher]

can you all give me the prows and cons please.

A prow to get you started.....

 

 

and her's a "Con"

 

Edited November 23, 2009 by alan_fincher

[Naughty Cal]

We never bother. You still have to get it down to working temperature in the morning again.

[nb Innisfree]

 

Hey now come, let's be serious!

[Naughty Cal]

Not "Lets be avin you"

[journeyperson]

A prow to get you started.....

 

 

 

and her's a "Con"

 

 

Nice one .

 

We turn it off at night and put freezer blocks in to keep the temp down. If you are running the engine the next day it soon gets back down to temperature once you turn it on again.

Edited November 23, 2009 by journeyperson

[Keeping Up]

Yes you have to put the same amount of energy back in the next day, so at first thought it shouldn't make any difference. BUT if you switch it off overnight and then don't switch it back on until not only have you started the engine but also you have waited until the alternator has some power to spare (ie the charge current has started to reduce because the batteries have completed the 'bulk charging' phase) then you will have gained. Of course, in order to wait that long without the fridge temperature rising too far you may have to make your fridge extra cold to start with, which would cancel out the gain unless you have the engine running at the time (so it would have to be before 8pm)

[number four]

Nice one .

 

We turn it off at night and put freezer blocks in to keep the temp down. If you are running the engine the next day it soon gets back down to temperature once you turn it on again.

 

 

have you measured the saving dont you need energy to freeze the blocks in the first place.

what i dont undrestand is if this was a good idear all fridges would coome with a holding plate but these seem to have died out as an option !

 

i cant get my head round how you are saving any power thats why im asking.

[Naughty Cal]

The other thing to consider is keeping beer cold enough and having enough cold ones for an evening.

[number four]

Yes you have to put the same amount of energy back in the next day, so at first thought it shouldn't make any difference. BUT if you switch it off overnight and then don't switch it back on until not only have you started the engine but also you have waited until the alternator has some power to spare (ie the charge current has started to reduce because the batteries have completed the 'bulk charging' phase) then you will have gained. Of course, in order to wait that long without the fridge temperature rising too far you may have to make your fridge extra cold to start with, which would cancel out the gain unless you have the engine running at the time (so it would have to be before 8pm)

 

so the potential saving is the fact that it takes twice as much power to replace whats been taken from the batteries

 

is there any merit in the asumption that the fridge is more eficent when working hard insted of ticking over all night

[Naughty Cal]

A lot will come down to your chosen fridge.

 

Ours is economical enough to leave on. The compressor doesnt kick in too often through the night.

[journeyperson]

have you measured the saving dont you need energy to freeze the blocks in the first place.

what i dont undrestand is if this was a good idear all fridges would coome with a holding plate but these seem to have died out as an option !

 

i cant get my head round how you are saving any power thats why im asking.

 

It's the way we use the boat. We don't live aboard so during the day we are usually moving and charging whilst the freezer is freezing. Or if we're not moving I'll run the generator to charge. If I don't switch the fridge off it is likely to get me up in the night because it starts "hunting" i.e depletes the batteries. It is very old and inefficient but it works.

[mikevye]

The optimum solution is to simply turn the temperature selector to 1 overnight and turn it back up to your normal daytime selection. The fridge doesn't like being switched on and off something to do with the refrigerant used in todays machines.

[cotswoldsman]

Does your fridge run off 12v? If it does can not see the point of turning it off.

[Athy]

We always turn ours off. About 15 minutes after we switch the engine off, a light on the front of the fridge starts flashing, which I take to be a plea to turn it off, so we do. I don't know whether it would flatten the batteries if we left it on, but better safe than sorry.

[Guest]

We always turn ours off. About 15 minutes after we switch the engine off, a light on the front of the fridge starts flashing, which I take to be a plea to turn it off, so we do. I don't know whether it would flatten the batteries if we left it on, but better safe than sorry.

 

Possibly a different set up but we were told last week that the flashing light meant low battery, insufficient to power the fridge, and if it came on to call the yard....

[Nickhlx]

We do run ours colder ( at coldest) for the latter part of the cruising day, turn down to about 2/5 ( normal) for the evening, and then switch off overnight, partly because it is too noisy to sleep in the same room as it ... I guess it saves electricity too - things are still cool in the morning though - the milk is about the most sensitive item and that gets drunk / changed every other day, so doesn't become a problem.

 

Nick

[Lesd]

We switch our's off at night to then back on first thing, this is summer only thing though as we switch it off completely all winter. The rationale being that if we've used a fair chunk of battery capacity during the evening (TV or computer. water heater, shower pumps etc) and we're getting down anywhere near to the 50% SOC area then having the fridge on all night can take us close or even below the magic figure. By switching off overnight we stay above 50% always, the next morning we're either cruising or all the solar panels are hard at work charging the batteries again, even with the fridge on we are virtually always back to 100% by evening (summer only obviously).

So we do turn it off but probably for different reasons to most.

Les

[DHutch]

I do it, becuase of the noise.

- If you batterys are limited and your crusing, then come morning the engines on.

- Save its for the lights/radio of an evening and that sort of thing i guess.

 

But no, unless your really stuggling for power. For me its only the noise.

 

 

Daniel

[nb Innisfree]

The optimum solution is to simply turn the temperature selector to 1 overnight and turn it back up to your normal daytime selection. The fridge doesn't like being switched on and off something to do with the refrigerant used in todays machines.

 

Turning fridge off or on is just the same as t/stat cutting in or out

[MrCJ]

In this weather turn it off full time just put your milk in a bucket and leave it outside

[Barry]

her's a "Con"

 

 

Err nope

 

If you want to be pedantic He's a con

 

Gotcha!!

[Gibbo]

Here's the reality. Argue if you like....... If you do, you're wrong

 

Normal fridges don't have this "feature" of turning off because it achieves nothing when running from mains electricity. In fact it uses more energy. There might be something in it if you can run the fridge on economy 7 and switch it off at other times.

 

BUT........................

 

We're not (usually) running from shorepower. We're running from batteries that have to be charged. In order to charge batteries they have to go through an acceptance stage. At this point, by definition, there is spare capacity in the alternator - there must be otherwise the charge cycle wouldn't have reached the acceptance stage.

 

So at this point you switch the fridge on, full of ice packs (and food of course), with the thermostat on full. The fridge gets far too cold. But you're using available alternator power that would have gone nowhere otherwise.

 

By the following morning the fridge is still very cold.

 

The difference is that the energy to cool the fridge is coming directly from the alternator and being stored in ice packs instead of in batteries.

 

We did exactly this during a summer trial this year. The difference it made to battery consumption was amazing compared to running the fridge from the batteries.

 

And a final but..................

 

If you are running the engine purely to charge the batteries I fail to see how it can achieve much. But if you're running the engine anyway (because you're cruising), and you cruise long enough to charge your batteries up it will make an enormous difference.

[the grinch]

does turning it off at night mean that the man who turns the light on gets a nights sleep?

[ditchcrawler]

Here's the reality. Argue if you like....... If you do, you're wrong

 

Normal fridges don't have this "feature" of turning off because it achieves nothing when running from mains electricity. In fact it uses more energy. There might be something in it if you can run the fridge on economy 7 and switch it off at other times.

 

BUT........................

 

We're not (usually) running from shorepower. We're running from batteries that have to be charged. In order to charge batteries they have to go through an acceptance stage. At this point, by definition, there is spare capacity in the alternator - there must be otherwise the charge cycle wouldn't have reached the acceptance stage.

 

So at this point you switch the fridge on, full of ice packs (and food of course), with the thermostat on full. The fridge gets far too cold. But you're using available alternator power that would have gone nowhere otherwise.

 

By the following morning the fridge is still very cold.

 

The difference is that the energy to cool the fridge is coming directly from the alternator and being stored in ice packs instead of in batteries.

 

We did exactly this during a summer trial this year. The difference it made to battery consumption was amazing compared to running the fridge from the batteries.

 

And a final but..................

 

If you are running the engine purely to charge the batteries I fail to see how it can achieve much. But if you're running the engine anyway (because you're cruising), and you cruise long enough to charge your batteries up it will make an enormous difference.

I am considering fitting an electronic timer to do this for me, just coming on for say a hour over night and between 10 and 6 during the day