Icebox/Refrigeration on Ericson Yachts [Master Thread]

[SpudE36RH]

We ussually stay on our boat just for the weekends.
The orginal thermal fridge that came with the boat just doesn't work.
For years because we have just not wanted to pump out the cooler each weekend we have brought food on the boat and stored it in a 48 qt cooler on the starboard side.

It has come time that this to is getting old, What have other 38 owners done for refridgeration etc and how well does it work, we are concerned about putting refridgeration in the large icebox because things roll towards the back and are diffuicult to reach.

Thanks for the input
Jeff
1981 Ericson 38-Shalom

I just installed a conversion on our 36RH which really only had one spot for it.Iimagine you may have more choice in the 38?
We don't need to freeze things but have read at highest setting it will freeze.It runs so nice and quiet.On this boat the insulation around the ice box was 3".
Will put it to good use in a few days in the 80° heat or so. I have since re shaped glued the wood cut out to slide unit into place
Good luck.

 

[alexwilliamrussell]

I put a few layers of emergency reflective mylar blankets between ice in cooler and the interior walls, including the top, seems to DOUBLE the length of ice. And put a blanket over the cooler too. DOUBLE!!!! -- A

 

[Jamiem]

Just to add to the discussion in refrigeration. We built a day stern arch with 200 watts of solar panels, 2 days to vacation I decided to put a fridge on our e39. Bought an inverter, a Walmart bar fridge with separate freezer door, hooked it up to house battery and had cold beer for 3 weeks.

 

[Christian Williams]

See also related threads:

Refrigerator Organization

My wife and I just bought a 1988 38 - 200 and one of our challenges will be to figure out how and where to store stuff. One of our friends who recently sold their Hunter 38 mentioned she wasn't going to miss digging through the refrigerator to pull out items that always seem to be at the bottom...

ericsonyachts.org

35-3 icebox conversion

Considering adding refrigeration to our 35-3... does anyone have experience with this and is it worth it? Thanks!

ericsonyachts.org

 

[Touchrain]

I cut a 1” piece of foam and skinned it in fiberglass to reduce the size of our big compartment. It can be removed easily to expand the space if needed. It increased efficiency remarkably since the area furthest back is very poorly insulated. We have the basic 12-volt AB system and probably use 30-40 AH per day. Easily covered by solar panels.

 

[Jamiem]

We added 2 100w solar panels and a bar fridge from Wal-Mart. The inverter has enough capacity for the fridge but make sure you have enough house battery capacity to get you through the night

 

[shard7]

Our E27 still has the original ice box. I'm contemplating a portable refrigerator/cooler unit (an efficient compressor-based unit, not a thermoelectric one) and creating an opening where it could 'drop into' the ice box cavity with the lid at the counter surface.



I would add a 12v connection and openings in the ice box to help heat from the refrigerator dissipate.

Upsides include the ability to load it up with stuff at home and bring the entire unit to the boat, and being able to remove it and use elsewhere for road trips, etc.

Curious if anyone else has considered or done this.

 

[jtsai]

Our E27 still has the original ice box. I'm contemplating a portable refrigerator/cooler unit (an efficient compressor-based unit, not a thermoelectric one) and creating an opening where it could 'drop into' the ice box cavity with the lid at the counter surface.


I would add a 12v connection and openings in the ice box to help heat from the refrigerator dissipate.

Upsides include the ability to load it up with stuff at home and bring the entire unit to the boat, and being able to remove it and use elsewhere for road trips, etc.

Curious if anyone else has considered or done this.

I experimented with this approach thinking the compact size of the frig/freezer had to be more efficient as it "should" cycle less than the boat's frig/freezer with large unused space. After a weekend test, I was surprised that the power consumption was not much different. The portable unit cycled a lot often than I thought.

My conclusion is that the boat's frig/freezer is actually pretty efficient. So I installed a 200W solar system at a cost not much more than one of these portable frig/freezer units. The portable unit however is excellent for car trip to keep frozen items cold.