3 way Fridge/Freezer Question

[castlemaine]

Does anyone have a Freezer that efficiently holds food frozen in hot, summer beach conditions up to 10 days on gas?
I usually use the dry ice in esky system but am considering a fridge if it as efficient.
I appreciate the Engles, Waeco, etc, (2-ways) are great but I want one that really runs on Gas.
Brand and Model, please.
Cheers8-)

[FNQCairns]

Real world numbers to make a decent comparison are few and far between I have found. i have owned a chescold for a little over 25% of my life, it has literally a thousand + hours of camping trips under it's belt from near 0 to 44 deg ambient. Only ever failed my just lately when it simply wouldn't get up enough cool, I have been told it's possibly a partially blocked jet.

Flat out 24/7 you will get 10 days, don't expect too much more as a certainty, in the full shade all day and 34-36 deg ambient expect it to be a battle keeping internal temperatures much over a few of degrees below 0 without a cover or a blanket etc over the plastic portion of the unit. With a blanket/cover another couple of -ve degrees is possible. Overnight is where it catches up in these situations...by near as much as the average ambient temperature drop.

There is a setup and usage etiquette that must be maintained with these units and it can be real hard to get the more stubborn or absent minded campers to follow but once it has sunk in that it is in their best interest also as this is not the home fridge on 240v they are simply terrific value for fuss free camping. IMHO still best to take along a decent quality esky with ice to do your initial drink chilling if staying put for a good while.

Just a little bit more if you think you will be able to add 2 kg of Taylor fillets a day in the SEQ beachside summer and have them freeze hard through ...forget about it in the same sense as an engel running almost constantly or the home freezer.

cheers fnq

[sheridan]

Just got back from Karma Waters on the Mitchell river FNQ took our old chescold 45ltr Fridge Freezer and an esky used chescold on gas as a freezer froze 12 1.25ltr bottles of water 2 weeks before we left, the longer you freeze them the longer they last put 6 in esky 6 in chescold before we left you need to change frozen bottles over early at night gives the freezer time to refreeze the bottles by the next evening ice in the esky dosn,t melt much overnight in the cooler temp ..Took heshin bag to cool beer down in the river before putting in freezer then in to esky saves trying to cool hot beer or softdrink .Only there for 5 days beer was always ice cold .Only shade was tent or tarp when your freezer is on gas you can,t move it every 5 minutes into the shade Ambient temp night 16 deg day 28 to 30 deg

Geoff

[PinHead]

Real world numbers to make a decent comparison are few and far between I have found. i have owned a chescold for a little over 25% of my life, it has literally a thousand + hours of camping trips under it's belt from near 0 to 44 deg ambient. Only ever failed my just lately when it simply wouldn't get up enough cool, I have been told it's possibly a partially blocked jet.

Flat out 24/7 you will get 10 days, don't expect too much more as a certainty, in the full shade all day and 34-36 deg ambient expect it to be a battle keeping internal temperatures much over a few of degrees below 0 without a cover or a blanket etc over the plastic portion of the unit. With a blanket/cover another couple of -ve degrees is possible. Overnight is where it catches up in these situations...by near as much as the average ambient temperature drop.

There is a setup and usage etiquette that must be maintained with these units and it can be real hard to get the more stubborn or absent minded campers to follow but once it has sunk in that it is in their best interest also as this is not the home fridge on 240v they are simply terrific value for fuss free camping. IMHO still best to take along a decent quality esky with ice to do your initial drink chilling if staying put for a good while.

Just a little bit more if you think you will be able to add 2 kg of Taylor fillets a day in the SEQ beachside summer and have them freeze hard through ...forget about it in the same sense as an engel running almost constantly or the home freezer.

cheers fnq

check that the flue is clean..they will get a large amount of carbon build up in them which prevents the unit from operating correctly.

[tigermullet]

That's the go - a clean flue. Other than that our Chescold does a great job on gas. No complaints from me. Summer on the boat it uses 4 kg of gas every ten days. In really hot conditions having another 4kg or using a 9kg bottle with the thermostat turned up to coldest might be needed.

We clean the flue by tightly joining four pipe cleaners to get the required length and have found that it is best to clean it with the flame burning. It does scorch or burn the bottom part of the joined pipe cleaners. I tried it with the flame out and the accumulated soot clogged the burner.

The Chescold is great on gas - completely useless on 12v. It performs okay but shags batteries real quick.

[FNQCairns]

Thanks for that advice blokes, I do not have the first inkling how to go about maintaining this beast.

Anyone know how to do a jet clean on these things? or anything else I should look at. Or should I just give it to a professional and be done with it.

cheers fnq

[tigermullet]

We couldn't clean our burner out. Tipped it upside down and shook the hell out of it but wasn't successful in unclogging it completely. Lots of gunk dropped out and was, I suspect, a mix of soot and burned insects (sand flies etc..

In the end we paid $150 for a proper service. Money well spent. I don't know how they clean them but suspect it is not too difficult. After a service they run them overnight on 240 volt, check the temperature then fire up the gas and check again. We were told that turning them upside down does not do any harm and, quite often, will fix the problem.

Anyway, I was happy to pay for the service because it is a great little unit which cops a terrible flogging.

A lot of people don't like Chescold for some reason but we will be keeping ours - I can't speak highly enough of it.

[boys play]

Hear hear as to the Chescold....we have had one for 20 years, seen many trips and has quite a few scars, but still plugging away. Had a problem with it not cooling at one stage, but I was told to try turning it upside down a few times and listen for the refrigerant trickling through the system...whch it did, and subsequently unblocked it...that being the problem.
Haven't heard the bit about the flue...is a vacuum an option to suck out the build up?
cheers
Ian

[jimbamb]

FNQ
best way is to replace the jet as it is a very fine hole and much easier to screw in a new jet than try and clean it.
Another thing that can give trouble is not having the fridge LEVEL the flame has to hit the EXACT spot for it to work AS in caravan fridges.
Jim

[tigermullet]

I don't know about using a vacuum for cleaning the flue - it's fairly narrow. I think the service people removed the burner to get a good go at it. That was all that was needed but it couldn't be done without removal for some reason.

[FNQCairns]

Thanks for the replies, I decided to get stuck into it this morning, it's in many bits ATM, have the jet out and have boiled it in vinegar with a bit of sloshing around, the hole is so small like .1 of a mm or less that I couldn't see well enough if it was truly blocked. I did find an insect living in the input of the gas line it came out all gooey with the probe so was fresh, packed in with hard mud and possibly not my original cause, must remember to block that pipe off when not in use, have back washed the line from jet with 100psi, hope thats enough.

TM the flu on mine has baffles toward the top designed to stop anything falling in, if it does it also falls out, no way to clean it that I can see, will poke around that bit a little more.

Last time I tried to use it on site the flame kept blowing out which is something I had not experienced in all the years of owning it, suspect this was a symptom of weak gas flow??....better prepared for next time now as all this do-able in the bush but would be a nuisance.

cheers fnq

[FNQCairns]

Job is done, access to the jet and flu is from below, flu was fairly clean, if the jet and flu clean only is accessed from the bottom of the unit it would be quite a fast job.

cheers fnq

[tigermullet]

Thanks for the tip. It is difficult to get our Chescold out because it is bolted through the deck of the boat by a large stainless steel plate with a threaded bolt welded to it. We have to get under the boat to undo the nut No baffles in our flue but getting at it from the bottom does sound better.

[FNQCairns]

Anytime, hope it does help one day. Can you see the flame? me not being very flash with understandings about gas I really didn't twig that the yellow flame it has had for quite a while was worthy of investigating, the flame since putting it back together now is pure blue and after an hour it is chilling I suspect better than it has done for a long long time certainly no comparison to how it behaved last trip, so I am tickled;D , have become a little attached to it over the years:-*.

cheers fnq

[tigermullet]

To see the flame we have to use a mirror. A clean blue flame is best and that is what we get most of the time. Sometimes it is tinged with yellow but it freezes very well.

[castlemaine]

Thanks for the replies guys, I've got an old Chescold RT50 (fridge only). As previously said it works best on gas but I've never found from new that the temperature adjustment makes any noticible difference.
Thanks for heads-up in cleaning the flue and jet.
I like the Chescold for food and drinks but I think I'll stick to the dry ice method for the frozen stuff.
Cheers8-)

[Bear001]

Thanks guys - was just debating on buying a chescold 3-way for this summer- seems they have the thumbs up.