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My 34 came retrofitted with an Adler Barbour Cold Machine. While it's nice to not have to deal with ice, I think it takes up too much room in the ice box. I'm thinking either I should just take it out, or switch the evaporator with the flat cold plate since the freezer part is useless although I do like the giant ice cubes it makes.
What do you think? Switch to a flat plate or ditch the whole thing.
Personally, I love my refer when I"m cruising. I can keep meat frozen and everything else cold enough to last.
If you need more galley space, look to see if you have plates etc in a tilting hide-away compartment. It looks cool but it uses a ton of space poorly in my opinion.
I found an amazing amount of storage space on my PSC 34 so be sure you've explored all your options.
In preparing my boat for cruising, I removed the refrigeration for 2 reasons: 1) Lower electrical consumption, 2) Free space in the port cockpit locker where the refrigeration unit was mounted.
Beth Leonard's Voyager's Handbook discusses how to cruise without refrigeration.
I did half my circumnavigation w/o refrigeration and the second half with. Want to ask me which was preferable?
Certainly cruising w/o refrigeration can be done, but it's more like camping than living in a home, even if that home is a boat.
Shrimp.. let's be realistic if you have the skill and tools to mess with such a very small (in terms of refrigeration small) unit. I would cost near if not more as much to change the Evap as it would to get an off the shelf new unit with condenser! If you are DIY. alll new is best IMO
It uses a cold plate in the icebox and instead of the air cooled compressor unit in your lazarette, you would use a self-pumping in-water heat exchanger in a thru-hull fitting that replaces your galley sink drain thru hull. I've had this system and it has worked flawlessly. The danfoss compressor module is small enough to fit under your sink and would free up space in your lazarette when you rip out the old system.
Hello all, we are newly back into sailing and must admit never had refrigeration on a boat before. We absolutely love our Adler Barbour unit. We also have much experience with land yachting and have many trips off the grid in remote places where ice cannot be had. The absolute best 12v units out there for efficiency are Engel units.
Very little drain on batteries, will freeze stuff, quiet. Not cheap though. Not sure how it would retrofit into a PSC icebox but maybe worth a look.
Meanwhile, we loaded 20lbs of block, a full compliment of food and beverage, ran motor a few hours (wind on the nose), sailed some, turned unit off for half the day at night and still had most of the ice left after 3 days. Golly these iceboxes are well insulated!
Hey Denise, We are very happy with our current refridge system. Just threw out the Engel units for the OP that was considering something different. No measurements,photos, or install advice coming cuz we aren't doing one! Good advice for someone if they do though.
I hear ya! We are simply happy to have refrigeration of any type, especially in an icebox as well designed and insulated as the one on our boat. PSC didn't scrimp on it's construction.
Lived aboard for 3 years, cruised to SoPac and recently solo'd to Hawaii without refrigeration. Buy better quality beer and you don't need it. Used block Ice when we were living aboard and it would last for 3 days or so not a big deal to replenish. Didn't bother to buy ice with current board that I've lived on for weeks at a time and sailed to Hawaii. Fresh stuff kept for 3-4 days in SF without refrigeration and everything tastes better at room temp in any case. Cruising wasn't an issue as only a freezer would solve long term storage issues. Fresh veggies weren't readily available so a reefer would have been virtually useless except for beer in any case if you are going off the beaten path. The only I missed was a glass of cold milk occasionally which would have run out quickly on a passage.
Maintaining refrigeration seems to be a major headache for boats with it. Seems like the refrigeration owned the boat's owners. When it went down, which it seemed to do quite often, they'd immediately pull up the anchor and sail hundreds of miles and hang in some polluted commercial harbor waiting to get it fixed. Knew several boats that blew through the Marquesas and Tuamotu's virtually without stopping so they could get their refrigeration fix. Missed some of the best cruising out there just so they could have a cold beer.
Refrigeration is a nice to have item for cruising but certainly not a necessity. Like all the other toys on a boat, the more you have, the more time you spend keeping them going almost to the point where they become your full time occupation. Almost left out the most important negative for refrigeration, the systems eat electrons like there is no tomorrow. You'll definitely need a couple amps of battery stowage, several hundred watts of solar, and a wind generator dedicated to keeping the reefer cold. It's either that or run the engine every day or install a generator.
12/24 volt refrigeration came out I think, in the early 80s VERY LOW WATTAGE! VERY DEPENDABLE! AMAZING in most everyway compared to engine driven and 120/220 volt or even 3 phase.
You may be taking all the discussions here as trouble but most are about making the ice boxes better.
You are entitled to your own opinion but in this I say distinctly you are wrong. :eek A machine that draws 3-5amps on 12 volts is nothing short of amazing.
Boats with just 2 12 volt batteries can run the fridge on 1 bat for 2-3 days
Some boats are still running units installed in the early 80s and it helped me sell my boat!
Yeah, rip that refer system out. You don't really need it. Ice should work fine.....
Then you can sell it to me cheap since it's used because I'm looking at a boat that only has an ice box and I'd like to have a carton of milk for my cereal, and cold beer, and not have to worry about draining the water out of ice box every few days.
roverhi@yahoo.com;3582393
Maintaining refrigeration seems to be a major headache for boats with it. Seems like the refrigeration owned the boat's owners. [/QUOTE said:
One of those internet forum myths. In 8 years and two boats (one with a 25 year old refrigeration system and one with a 15 year old system) never have had any problem with my freezer/refrigeration. The only "maintenance" needed is defrosting once in a while.
Meanwhile my boat is out on it's mooring with the refrigeration running 24/7 keeping the beer cold, the frozen food frozen, and the cold cuts cold!
I sure don't miss the days of lugging ice to the boat and every time I wanted to be away a while having to get rid of food needing cold storage.
Hey Shrimp, responded earlier with a suggestion to look at Engel units but reread ur original inquiry and needed some clarification. We also have a PSC, an 89 31 and so our icebox is as well constructed as yours. The Adler Barbour refer was not installed until 98ish by the previous owner. Other than the freezer, which works like a champ, there is no intrusion into the ice box space. Certainly takes up less room than multiple blocks of ice and has the added benefit of space used for food instead of melting ice. Is your set up different?
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