Frigoboat Expert in Haverstraw, NY - Keel Cooler Damaged

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by darylat8750

Would you be willing to recommend a couple of the air cooled units you are referring to?

There are several good air cooled units out there:
Adler Barbour (evaporation plate)
Nova Kool (evaporation plate)
Technautics CoolBlue (holding plate)

Mark on SV Reach in another refrigeration thread reported that he was using 45-55AH per day on his AB system big freezer and refrigerator and full time cruising in the tropics and CoolBlue has testimonials of simular power usage. I'm the manufacturer of the Technautics CoolBlue system, so of course I like my unit, but there are lots of good options out there that are air cooled. BUT more important than the system....is the insulation in your BOX, I will say that right now! The best refrigeration unit in the world can't help a poorly insulated box be efficient.

The No 1 problem with refrigeration systems on boats isn't the system they have, but the damn worthless insulation in most boats. All the time we have clients tell us "oh...my insulation is great" and then when their Amp usage turns out to be double what it should be it takes a little testing to show them that the R30 insulation they "thought" they had was really an R10 or worse. No system in the world will keep their ice cream hard not because of the refrigeration system, but because even running at full speed for 24hrs per day, more heat is coming into the Box than the compressor can remove.

I would say look at those three brands above, do a little comparisons and ask some technical questions from the manufactures. But after living and cruising aboard now for 6 years, I have seem more problems with water cooled units (both keel Koolers and pumped water) to not put one on my boat. The hard part is that peope will say "I love this, I love that, etc" but without them giving the following information along with their "I love this or that" comment you can't compare anything.

Cubic Foot size of Freezer and Refrigerator
Insulation R-value or at least the type and inches of insulation they have
Number of people aboard
Location (Pacific North West or Panama)
Daily Amp hour usage

With those 5 things you can get some good comparative data.
Another good thing is take a look at Richard's Website:
http://www.kollmann-marine.com/
He has lots of great info and will help you get a feeling for the overall technology.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

There are several good air cooled units out there:
Adler Barbour (evaporation plate)
Nova Kool (evaporation plate)
Technautics CoolBlue (holding plate)

Mark on SV Reach in another refrigeration thread reported that he was using 45-55AH per day on his AB system big freezer and refrigerator and full time cruising in the tropics and CoolBlue has testimonials of simular power usage. I'm the manufacturer of the Technautics CoolBlue system, so of course I like my unit, but there are lots of good options out there that are air cooled. BUT more important than the system....is the insulation in your BOX, I will say that right now! The best refrigeration unit in the world can't help a poorly insulated box be efficient.

The No 1 problem with refrigeration systems on boats isn't the system they have, but the damn worthless insulation in most boats. All the time we have clients tell us "oh...my insulation is great" and then when their Amp usage turns out to be double what it should be it takes a little testing to show them that the R30 insulation they "thought" they had was really an R10 or worse. No system in the world will keep their ice cream hard not because of the refrigeration system, but because even running at full speed for 24hrs per day, more heat is coming into the Box than the compressor can remove.

I would say look at those three brands above, do a little comparisons and ask some technical questions from the manufactures. But after living and cruising aboard now for 6 years, I have seem more problems with water cooled units (both keel Koolers and pumped water) to not put one on my boat. The hard part is that peope will say "I love this, I love that, etc" but without them giving the following information along with their "I love this or that" comment you can't compare anything.

Cubic Foot size of Freezer and Refrigerator
Insulation R-value or at least the type and inches of insulation they have
Number of people aboard
Location (Pacific North West or Panama)
Daily Amp hour usage

With those 5 things you can get some good comparative data.
Another good thing is take a look at Richard's Website:
Kollmann Marine
He has lots of great info and will help you get a feeling for the overall technology.

I agree 100% that insulation often times has a greater effect than type of cooling and where the condenser unit is placed. I have 1" of Aero-gel, then 3-4"s of pour foam over that. In Ca. it ran 4 minutes on and 20 minutes off. Here in Mexico it is 4 minutes on 18 minutes off. If the insulation was too thin, it would cycle much sooner. So it uses about 40 amps a day. I probably get 60-100amps solar in a day. So all is well.

[SO49]

Update - June 2014

After stressing all winter over the situation with our freezer I finally called Frigoboat in Annapolis and discussed the alternatives and who we might use to service the unit. Frigoboat felt that most likely the unit just needed to be flushed and a filter-drier added. It was unlikely that the compressor or evaporator needed to be replaced.

With repsect to who could do the work I nixed all the Jeanneau dealers since they would be more concerned with putting boats in the water and handling their existing customers. I asked if there were any independent refrigeration techs in the Northeast and they recommended Scott Weedon of Eagle Marine Services, Wickford, RI. Scott is the main 'go to' guy for Frigoboat refrigerator-freezer units in the Northeast.

I called Scott. He was 90% sure that all he needed to do was to evacuate and flush the system with nitrogen then add a filter-drier.

So around the end of April I brought the boat up to Wickford, RI and turned it over to Scott. He did the work over three days and we spent another three days testing the freezer and I'm happy to report that as of the end of June the freezer is working great. It's maintaining a constant 0 degrees Fahrenheit - keeping ice cream hard.

Even though Scott was able to service the unit and fix it without replacing the freezer it was still an expensive process. Some of the costs incurred include:

- hauling the boat for the winter to check the keel cooler (would have used wet storage this year)
- round trip to Wickford RI, fuel, expenses, etc
- dockage at the Wickford Boatyard Marina
- Scott's labor and parts

I'll give an update at the end of the summer for those interested in knowing whether the Frigoboat freezer stayed fixed.

[skipgundlach]

I sincerely hope you've solved your problem. Mine proved intractable and we wound up replacing it (so as to not hijack this thread, see that thread here: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...em-106061.html).

My system was replaced, and I've posted separately about that, but it's a voracious consumer of electrons. It's about half bigger than the cool blue "standard box" but consumes on the order of 200AH a day.

Rich, I'd appreciate either a mail (my curiosity; I can't afford to change) to my name, all one word, at gmail, or perhaps to here, to explain HOW your system can seem to extract more heat per amp than all the others, and how you maintain relatively constant (maybe you don't?) temperatures in the box(es). See my post linked below for the specs on my new system.

If it turns out that your problem ISN'T solved, knowing this sort of thing in advance might make your conversion more easily done. My installer, referred by Frigoboat Info (the US distributor), aside from agreeing that we could not make an evaporator plate of the sort we had go down the hole for replacement, didn't consult me on the choice of replacement, other than to tell me what was happening as he went from two (slightly too large - couldn't fit them to the walls) plates to three plates. Read my most recent posting (Frigoboat catastrophic failure and attempts to start over... - Cruisers & Sailing Forums) for that story.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by skipgundlach

I
My system was replaced, and I've posted separately about that, but it's a voracious consumer of electrons. It's about half bigger than the cool blue "standard box" but consumes on the order of 200AH a day.

Good lord - 200AH/day???!!! Are you running a frozen cargo hold???

I can't afford the 36hrs or the mind-numbing that reading your long posts in the other threads require (how many keyboards do you go through each year?), but you seem to have over-thunked yourself into a complex system that isn't practical at all on a boat.

You could run 2-3 BD50's at full speed on small evaporators into a poorly insulated box and use less power than you are now.

I can't see how you could have made it any worse...

Mark

[skipgundlach]

Mark, reasonable questions.

However, as noted in the beginning, let's not hijack this thread.

Pose the question in my thread (catastrophic failure) and we can pursue it.

L8R

Skip

[colemj]

The only two questions I asked were whether you were running a frozen cargo hold and how many keyboards/yr you go through.

Both of those were rhetorical.

As for hijacking - uhmmm - post #34?

Mark

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by colemj

The only two questions I asked were whether you were running a frozen cargo hold and how many keyboards/yr you go through.

Both of those were rhetorical.

As for hijacking - uhmmm - post #34?

Mark

☺

Post 34 was directly related to the original, with references to other posts which related to mine.

The recent keyboard is about 7 years old; the one before it lasted about 10.

Reading =my= (catastrophic failure) post will show you my box sizes, makeup and setpoints.

Further deponent sayeth not, to avoid any more collateral damage to Haverstraw's thread ☺