Excessive condensation from Refrigerator

[David B]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Your problem is the seal with the opening lid or door. Or you open it too much. Moist air is entering the box.

I think they are experiencing condensation outside - on the surrounding panels enclosing the unit.

[David B]

Originally Posted by Ardens2

We have a 1999 boat and upgraded the fridge/freezer to Frigiboat with a keel cooler 2 years ago. Up until now we have used the boat for weekends and the annual 2 week vacation in the Bahamas. We have moved onto the boat about 2 months ago and headed up to the northeast for hurricane season. Our plans are to head to the Caribbean, panama canal, South Pacific and New Zealand but those plans are up in the air.

We are having excessive condensation on all sides of the refrigerator/freezer. We did have a refrigerator company in Fort Lauderdale install some insulation in 2019. Now with this condensation we have reinsulated ourselves (inside and outside freezer) with new insulation including aerogel insulation. Even immediately after defrosting the freezer the condensation is out of control. It is much worse on the humid days.

We are talking with a marine repair about our options;
1. vacuum panels (though we hear there is a long wait time
2. rebuilding the whole fridge area with 6 inches of insulation on each side which is a considerable loss of space
3. a ready made unit like the Vitrifrigo freezer refrigerator drawers (DW180IXD4-EF) and have the area customized around that?
Any suggestion to help with the condensation before we end up with wood rot? Anyone with experience with the Vitrifrigo unit?

Depending on how much effort you want to put into this, one option with be expanding closed cell foam. It is in itself a moisture barrier, and of course is also a thermal insulator. We have our boat is some very humid areas and have never seen any external condensation - and the installation is very much 'production line', so nothing special.

If you do in the end, decide to go for off the shelf new units, then the draw fridges and freezers work well. For a freezer, a chest is the ultimate - minimal cold air spill when opening, but for fridges, the drawers are very nice.

On our boat we have a chest freezer, a front-opening fridge, plus a drawer fridge I installed a couple of seasons ago. They all have their advantages.

Another thought regarding your condensation, is air movement. It might be possible to direct some of the warm air from your compressor towards the affected area - just a thought, as even with keel cooling, there will be warmth there.

[sailorphil9]

Originally Posted by Coolerking

...
We also use custom Getters panels on the high end stuff.
After all there is no better insulation than a vacuum.
Start with the gaskets and the door latches and hinges.

FWIW the earth is heated by the sun - heat travels through a vacuum. To improve on a vacuum you need an IR-reflective layer (we'll exclude other wavelengths for now). :-) Just sayin'...



Oh, and we use a car windscreen heat reflector over the contents of the freezer cos we have crap insulation. Air cooled danfoss, tropical sailing. It works, but uses a bit of juice. We get ise for the sundowners.

[s/v Jedi]

There are three methods of heat transfer: conductance, convection and radiation. All three must be blocked by the insulation.

Besides these factors, you need moisture and UV protection of the insulation. Countless ways to achieve that

After building “the perfect boxes” 15 years ago and now looking at replacing them again, we decided it was nit worth the cost and effort and we have switched to the Snomaster stainless steel ready to go units

[FAST FRED]

The usual hassle with insulation is folks with kits that want to squirt it in place.

Foam insulation has great R value because it traps lots of air bubbles BUT only IF it is allowed to expand fully. .

The usual hatch seal technique is to see how easily a dollar bill can be pulled from the closed lids all around.