What a puzzle- I have heard opposing opinions which appear well balanced- unfortunately! This leaves me no better off in search of a decision. I am leaning now towards a friend's
advice (he's a
marine refrigeration installer) of doing a combo
water and air: when in cold-enough-water disable, via a toggle switch (or simply unplug) the fan on the air-cooled part of the circuit. I'm
living aboard on
SF Bay, so the
water is plenty cold! Then, when hauled out or in warmer water, enable it or
plug it in. I am pretty set anyway on the keel-cooled option, so the decision is: add an air-cooled circuit at the same time, before making all the pre-charged
compression connections? I am hauling out the
boat for other btw (below the waterline)
work so want to install the cooler then. The rest of the system I can do at the
dock.
Question who, besides Frigoboat (friggin'
boat?) and
Isotherm, makes these units?
My next question is for anyone with the same boat or familiarity with it: (1984 Tayana 42, port
galley, centerline sink w/two top-loading doors and one front-loading door on the
icebox, oriented athwart-ships at the bulkhead aft of the main
salon against the master
head shower... sorry for the description- they built these things so many different ways)
Reason for asking: I cannot ascertain the quantity nor extent of foam insulation- I did notice during my re-power, (YEAH!) when I was
cleaning the
bilge areas (oh yeah, I know how to have fun!) that the foam sprayed into the contained area around the bottom of the
icebox space had squirted out of the holes made for the icebox drain-hoses. I inferred from this that the
insulation was well installed (injected, sprayed) with a minimum of voids. Anybody out there with enough experience in this boat's icebox installations to confirm or deny this for me?
Obviously, I am trying to get away with as much as possible with as little as possible. The prospect of removing and rebuilding what appears to be a well built, well insulated, double icebox is fairly daunting at this moment as I am not sure I could come up with the necessary cabinet-making skills to do it well. I am hoping to install a "kit" type system with a spill-over vent/hole/fan from the
freezer side thereby hopefully avoiding the cost of hiring "experts"... of course, I have been frequenting restaurants for almost all my
meals so I probably could have deep frozen the whole boat with what I've spent delaying this install! Thanks in advance- Johnston