As I (and many of you) suspected, a night or two of quality sleep and a little quiet contemplation thrown in for good measure has made all the difference, and with the calendar now totally clear for a while, it's full speed ahead with building my super-cool go-almost-anywhere adventure vehicle. It feels good to be back in this game.
With a few weeks to go before the Bostig kit arrives, I should have plenty of time to complete all necessary work to the van's body, get the windows tinted, and install all of the new window and door seals. I may even get the wheels and tires upgraded by then, which means the van will be sporting an entirely different look before too long.
Since I plan to have a DC-powered freezer (for loading up on copious amounts of the grass-fed goodness), I think I can avoid having a separate DC refrigerator by instead having a cooler and rotating in a new set of ice packs from the freezer every few days. Pictured above is the five-day cooler I recently purchased to test this idea, along with one set of ice packs and Q's handy remote temperature transmitter nestled in between.
And here it is on its way down to temperature...
Believe it or not, that's plenty of refrigerator space for my needs, so it should just be a matter of determining how many ice packs at a time will be necessary to maintain several days of solid 40 degree "weather." I'll be watching things closely over the next several days, so stay tuned for the thrilling results.
I want to add a DC fridge or freezer to my RV and like this idea. This is a great way to avoid using ice. I am anxious for the results of your testing with this. What brand freezer are you buying?
ReplyDeleteI'm leaning towards an Engel freezer. A bit spendy but I suspect they're worth it.
DeleteThis is really good idea, I hope it works for you!
DeleteNot to add more ideas than you care to think of in your conversion project... lol. Have you seen the DoubleBack VW van.? You can take a look here http://doubleback.co.uk/
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI think that the aim is To Simplify
DeleteAmazing, but not exactly stealthy!
DeleteOf course Q has a remote temperature transmitter. He's Q.
ReplyDeleteWhen you wonder if your refrigeration is working a remote temp gauge at less that $10 is a real deal!
DeleteYou don't have to wonder all you have to do is remember look at it.
Is there any way to hook up a remote temp gauage to an alarm system so Glenn could be alerted if the temperature started to climb?
DeleteThat really is a great idea Glenn. Buy 10 ice packs, keep 5 in the freezer and 5 in the cooler, use a remote temp gauge to monitor the inner temp, and swap them out as needed. No water drip, no hassle. Smart.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this idea! You're probably aware of this but it is easier to keep a full cooler cold than an empty one so you might want to do at least one test with the things you would normally have in it. You might find you need fewer cold packs which leaves more room in the freezer for grass fed goodness.
ReplyDeleteI've been doing this for a couple of years, using half-gallon milk containers. I start out with four solidly-frozen ones in the bottom of a five-day cooler, and two more in the freezer of my Lazy Daze refrigerator/freezer. Every day, or every other day, depending on weather, I changed out two of the containers. I also have about twenty of the Blue Ice thingies like you show, but the half-gallon containers provide more mass, thus stay frozen/cold a lot longer than something much thinner. Your choice would depend on the room you have in your Engel.
ReplyDeleteI kept mostly fruits and vegetables in there, though, not dairy products or anything that is too vulnerable. Not sure what you plan to keep in there. Eggs/butter/cheese should be fine. Canned drinks? Didn't try that as we don't use them - mostly just drink room-temperature distilled water.
A layer of Reflectix, inside, over the top of everything, lifting each side as needed to retrieve items, will keep out an amazing amount of heat. A silver windshield screen can be tossed over the whole thing on the outside to further encourage cold retention.
Last year, I added a layer of Reflectix to the bottom of the cooler to help mitigate the heat from the floor of the van. I think on the next trip, I am going to add a terry towel over the bottom layer of Reflectix to absorb any drips/condensation from the ice packs.
Great info, Judilyn. Thanks!
DeleteWhy don't you want a DC frig? I suspect you will use at least as much energy freezing the blue packs as you would running the frig. You will also be wasting a lot of space with blue packs.
ReplyDeleteYou could probably save energy by better insulting the frig and freezer.
Are two separate units better than a combo unit?
That's a good point. There is no free lunch when it comes to energy conversions like this.
ReplyDeleteNot a free lunch, but a much cheaper one.
DeleteNow I'm eagerly awaiting the solar-power/MPPT-charge-controller discussions, which will power the 12V Freezer that's been mentioned :)
ReplyDeleteI do think that 12V+120V dual-mode is good to have for those times when you're able to plug-in, and even a triple-mode (LP) would be nice to have at times (rainy Seattle).
I do wonder about the above comment by iwannaski - why not just have a fridge and a separate freezer (if you need capacity), or just a big combined unit (TruckFridge, Norcold, etc.)
I would've thought this was pretty obvious, but I guess not -- the theory I'm testing is that this freezer/cooler combination will use significantly less electricity than having both a fridge and freezer. Using the freezer to freeze ice packs will certainly use some additional electricity, but I seriously doubt it will come even close to doubling power consumption (as a separate fridge unit would come close to doing). We'll see though. As always, I'm the first to admit that I could be dead wrong.
DeleteYou will save money on not needing to buy the frig.
DeleteI think the freezer uses more energy if you keep putting not-frozen blue things in it than if you didn't put them in. I assume it doesn't run at a constant load regardless of internal temperature. If it runs at a constant state the blue thing idea is interesting.
It takes energy to cool the frig.
It takes energy to freeze the blue packs.
The blue things won't release more energy than what you put in them.
When you put the frozen blue things in the cooler they will cool the cooler and release the energy the freezer put into them.
I suppose there may be some efficiency by using only the freezer that I'm not aware of.
If you were able to time your use of the yummy grass fed meat you could use it to keep the cooler cool and that would be 'free' energy.
Good luck and thanks for all the info and interesting life in an RV stuff.
The freezer will certainly use more energy freezing the ice packs than if it didn't have to perform that task, but I suspect not nearly as much as an entire separate refrigerator would use keeping my food cold. And the freezer will generally be taking in ice packs that are at most in the mid 40's, so re-freezing them won't be such a huge power hit.
DeleteI'm not claiming to have found a source for free energy or anything like that. It seems likely that any freezer is rarely being used to 100% efficiency, so my theory is that I can exploit that untapped efficiency to keep a cooler cold. Again, we'll see.
What he said.
ReplyDelete:-)