Seawind installs an Isotherm Cruise 130 upright
refrigerator with the small compartment freezer above the counter, and a separate large freezer in counter. The Isotherm has been their standard fridge for years. More-recently, the Cruise 130 in the US was replaced by a similar Elegance line, which supposedly has improvement in the small freezer compartment door, better
seals, and maybe a bit thicker door insulation. The big complaint from owners regarding the Cruise 130- and from me regarding the Elegance that I have in my 2019
Seawind - is that the freezer compartment builds up frost very quickly. In humid temps, each time you open the door, it introduces more moisture that adds to the frost, and eventually a thick layer of ice. That is not such a huge issue, but unfortunately Isotherm has the thermostat for the unit located in the top of the unit, and frost and ice tends to build up around it relatively quickly. (Most of us have to defrost every two weeks.) The buildup encases the thermostat in ice, which it views as low temp in the refrigerated compartment as well, and therefore doesn't kick on the compressor. After defrosting, you can get a 38 deg F temp on a 1-2 setting. A few days later, the temp starts to increase, so you turn the setting to 3-4 to get it to kick on sooner. By two weeks, the setting is on 7, and refrig temps are in high 40's to low 50's deg F.
Food spoilage. Take everything out, defrost, start cycle all over.
Seawind has now introduced an option for the Cruise 130 fridge, but without the small freezer section in the top. That should hopefully alleviate the problem. My 2019
Seawind 1160 Lite also has a larger freezer section so the small compartment is not really needed (although it was super convenient to make ice/trays.)
Finally, the fridge running draws 7-7.5 amps. Also make sure you have good air space and circulation behind, or it will limit
cooling capacity. When both the fridge and freezer are running at night, it has a total draw of about 15 amps. (Thankfully they only tend to run about 50% of the time.) We have 800 watts of
solar and a 450 amp-hr house bank, which is sufficient for overnight draw. I think our next step will be to see if we can remove the freezer compartment to get rid of the ice buildup issue.
Just our first-hand experience. We dealt with this for about three months in the
Bahamas last year. Thought we had a bad thermostat until we figured out the ice buildup around the thermostat.