Tell me about your propane refrigerator (sale, house, buying)

[terracore]

Originally Posted by terracore

Modern solar panels do make electricity without direct sun under clouds. Judging from the output from my solar attic fan I'm guessing its at best 10% of direct sun but its better than nothing.

I was curious how much energy a solar panel made under clouds so I got out my multi-meter and tested one. I have a rated 10 watt panel that I use to keep a deep cycle battery topped off and it was reading 3.5 watts under cloudy skies.

[mpenaloza]

Anyone know where on the Big Island I could buy a mini propane fridge?

[mikereilly]

Modern energy star electric fridges are only using around 1kwh/day, so less than $15/month in electric cost on grid or half a panel's worth of off grid power.

[hotzcatz]

Ask Sauces & Propane (or whatever they are calling themselves these days) in Honokaa. They may be Little Gas Shack, they may be Scoshi World Sauces or some such. If you go to the Honokaa post office and continue downhill, they're about the third place past the post office on the right. Big propane tank outside and a lot of 'stuff' around the place. They sell a lot of propane appliances.

[SoloPilot]

Unless size is a problem, get the biggest propane fridge you can. The big ones don't use any more gas than the small ones, the only difference is the size of the box. You also want a 3-way (propane, 12V and 110V), so that you can run on AC when you're making it (I use DC most of the time, and only run the inverter when I need to run the washer or the microwave).

My place on the mainland has been off the grid for almost 7 years, with a propane stove, water heater, heater and fridge. Solar for electricity most of the time, sometimes have to run a generator if it's been overcast for more than a couple of days.

[terracore]

Originally Posted by mpenaloza

Anyone know where on the Big Island I could buy a mini propane fridge?

Try Hilo Propane next to Bamboo & Teak on Makaala.

[tpirsig]

We're off-grid, had a propane fridge at first and later switched to electric. 4,000 watts of panels in cloudy Volcano and we actually run two fridges now. I miss the quiet of the propane fridge -- they make no sound at all -- but other than that, it was an economic no-brainer to add panels and go the electric route.

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by tpirsig

.. I miss the quiet of the propane fridge -- they make no sound at all -- but other than that, it was an economic no-brainer to add panels and go the electric route.

Agreed. The propane fridges are whisper quiet, but that's all they've got going for them. They suck a lot of gas, which is costly and somewhat of a hassle to haul.

The person who said that the little units take almost as much gas as the bigger ones is correct.

[terracore]

Most people are surprised to learn that chest freezers can also make excellent refrigerators but use only a fraction of the electricity. You can use a product similar to this one on amazon: http://amzn.to/2eFCkxX to convert a freezer into a refrigerator. Basically it's just a plug-and-play temperature probe that cycles the power to the freezer on/off from the outlet so it refrigerates rather than freezes. Modern refrigerators, even "energy star" models, use most of their electricity in a warming/cooling cycling battle to keep the interior "frostless" at the same time it keeps the food cold. Chest freezers only use electricity for one purpose: refrigeration. Chest units don't lose all their cold air when the door is opened either. The cold air stays in the chest. Chest freezers also have more insulation than refrigerators do.

You can run a "chest refrigerator" like this with just a 200 watt solar panel, single marine battery, and 2000 watt inverter. It would take several thousand watts of panels to run a comparable modern stand-up refrigerator with the same capacity. If you are willing to deal with the headache of digging through a chest, it's the cheapest way to have refrigeration. Smaller chest freezers start at just a few hundred dollars and literally sip electricity compared to their "regular" refrigerator cousins. A lot of people with off-grid cabins refrigerate their food in this manner.

After Iselle, we had to run our "energy star" refrigerator a minimum of 16 hours to keep food in the "safe zone" using a generator. We only had to run our NOT "energy star" chest freezer an hour a day.

[hotzcatz]

I know some folks up mountain who have the chest freezer as their only refrigerator. Since cold air falls and the lid is on the top, none of the cold gets out when it's opened. It also has more insulation, I think, since it's supposed to be a freezer instead of a 'fridge. It's an electric one, though, since they have solar panels.