Opinions on fridges (1 Viewer)

[1world1love]

A Yeti that you already own is hard to beat if it works for you. There are a lot of other ways you could spend 2k to improve your experience.

I would not go back to a cooler now, but we did not have a nice cooler when we bought our LX so it was a no brainer to start with. I absolutely loathe dealing with ice and then ice water, and eventually just water, but if I had a Yeti in hand, its hard to say what my perspective would be.

A lot depends on how much you plan on camping/traveling though.

We love our Dometic 55im. It is super reliable and does a pretty remarkable job with temp control, considering what it goes through. It is good for about 5 days of provisions for our family, but we do a lot of dry goods and are strategic with our perishables. One of the main reasons we went with a fridge is that we wanted a "permanent" solution, meaning we wanted something that would always be ready and we would never have to deal with. We just load it up and go. No muss, no fuss.

Like others have said, we will carry a lot of frozen foods that will thaw during the course of the trip. We also keep a handful of frozen water bottles that help keep things cold and then provide refreshing ice water to drink on day hikes during our trip. None of that is necessary but it helps to extend our rations and also helps keep power draw down.

Notice also that I said 2k above. I would not go cheap on the fridge, or at least make sure that it has a decent compressor. And then you add in a pull out tray, an insulated cover, and a power solution (which turns into its own "hobby"). After all that, you will have no problem hitting 2k. For us it has been worth it and more, but again, we started with a 20 year old igloo, so anything would be an improvement

Also, isn't REI running the anniversary sale right now until Memorial Day?

If you are going to take the plunge, I would suck it up and go save 20% on a Dometic there ASAP rather than waiting. You'll not find a better deal than that on a quality bit of gear.

 

[1world1love]

Hard to beat that.

 

[bloc]

Pro tip: get some vinyl tubing to siphon the water out of a strapped down cooler without having to use the drain.

 

[grinchy]

I think fridge should be top o line or a cheap generic, and deal worth the trade offs of each ($ or longevity)
I went cheap ($250), and about the same for the off brand 380wh LFP battery thing. Both fine, but it’s only been 3 years.

 

[bicycleagent003]

First off... Thank you very much, everybody, for your opinions!


Then.. wow. The outpouring of love for your fridges is humbling. Not a single nay-sayer spoke up. Not even a half-hearted response.

I think I have become convinced and will be asking for a fridge for Father’s Day. Though sadly this means I won't be able to take advantage of that REI sale (thanks for the suggestion @UPR LC ).

Though several thoughts:

1. The term "game changer" has come up repeatedly. Frankly, when I got the Yeti I kind of thought of that as a game changer. I've never had a cooler that would keep ice for as long. It's dramatic how much longer ice remains frozen in it vs my previous coolers. Though you do pay for this in weight. I think Yeti coolers are stupidly heavy. But could people be comparing the game of crappy coolers vs the game of portable fridges?

2. I think I need to step my game up on packing coolers/fridges. Many of you have said that due to the savings in space in not needing ice, 55L is sufficient for a week. For me, ice doesn't really take up extra space since I fill up the cooler with food and drink and then pour ice over everything. Because of spaces between my packaging, there are always pre-existing gaps between items that the ice can then fill. But now I am thinking I need to learn how to pack my fridge with Tetris-like skills. Maybe not putting things in Tupperware is a start.
Ps. I did do the math and a 55L Dometic is 8800 cubic inches and a 75L Yeti is 10500 cubic inches. So, once you consider a power source there would be a slight space savings, as several of you said. And if you have an installed second battery under the hood or trust the voltage cut-offs to use your starter battery, then there is a larger space savings.


3. While I do love the stuff, I’m not sure I will ever camp with ice-cream as several of you mentioned. It seems too indulgent when “roughing it.” But there is a giant value in having a freezer along with you (as you suggested @CharlieS) beyond treats. A fridge or cooler will only keep an un-frozen steak edible for 5 days (if you go by the FDA suggestions). But if you have a freezer, you could keep a steak for much longer and not have to eat dehydrated bag meals by the end of the trip (not to knock the bag meals; some are delicious).

(and yes, I realize I’m a hypocrite in saying ice cream is indulgent but steaks aren’t)





So thank you all for your input. It is greatly appreciated. And now I will spend the next few weeks in analysis-paralysis trying to figure which fridge to get…..

When I bought my Dometic a few years ago from REI, I used one of their 20% off coupons (like they have up now). Actually the Dometic fridges are 20% right now at REI so that's easy. If you're really cheap, like me, you can also go to one of the online stores where you can buy gift cards. I bought 9 $100 gift cards for $94/card. So, adding all that up, I was saving 26% off the fridge. Also, by buying it from REI, you have a one year, no questions asked return policy. If you decide it's not your jam, you take it back. Period. And I did call and even did an REI chat (so I could email it to myself) and confirm that the Dometic fridge's are not exempted from REI's one year satisfaction guarantee. (They were not as of 2020, I would reconfirm now.) Just my two cents. I try to be value conscious, but I decided to buy once, cry once on the fridge. My Dometic 55IM has been bomber, totally fabulous. I also bought the Dometic fridge slide, it's great, too. Not cheap, not light, but very high quality.

 

[rlynch356]

I have 2 fridges
ARB 50QT - probably 6 years old.
National Luna 50L Dual zone... 2 years old.
both powered by a redrac DCDC and 100ah Renogy lipo4 battery.

I would not hesitate to recommend either fridge, both have been excellent, and well different, I do use the freezer compartment in the NL a fair amount when traveling.

 

[40Man]

Check out cashbackaholic, rakuten, capitalone, activejunky etc. when buying gear. I just bought a Yakima Exo hitch system, and Activejunky had 8% back at Moosejaw on top of the same pricing (20% off msrp) as REI and free shipping.

 

[Aifer]

I agree with the above comments. I did the Yeti thing for a while and it worked fine. Disadvantage is soggy food, sloshy water noise on trails and having to drain the cooler and refill with ice. Disadvantage of the fridge is the power draw and price, especially when you factor in dual batteries and solar if you go that route. @CharlieS is right, do you need it? no. Is it really nice to have instead of a cooler? in my opinion yes. Also it's just nice to have it wired in, on a drawer slide, secure and ready to go whenever i need it with no stops for ice required.

What wasn't mentioned above - and maybe I'm the rare case - is that I use my fridge all the time (except our coldest winter months), not just on trips. We live a couple hours from any major town so we tend to drive a lot, especially for our kids high school sports. I keep the fridge stocked. It's just nice having a cold jug of water or beverage whenever and handy to be able to throw in a lunch or snacks. Wife and kids love it for that and it saves me a bunch on overpriced gas station drinks. We also use it quite a bit for Costco runs since we have distance until we can get home to put things in the fridge.

I have a 75L dometic fridge freezer and other than costco runs it's too big - much larger than needed for most things. I'd like a smaller one that takes up less space and power for my 200.

View attachment 3325360

the false floor in the picture is very interesting. Can you elaborate more on this setting?

 

[sherman]

Another plug for National Luna + Ecoflow River 2 Pro battery + 110w portable solar panel. Works like a charm.

 

[jmcclusk]

I have a iceco little go20 and love it. On big trips id probably bring my yeti too, but the go20 is big enough for meats and cheese and milk. Yeti for the drinks which dont mind getting soaked. Its smaller and weighs less so easy to carry around. Big enough for half gal milk, two packs sausages, tritip steak, and more cheese than is healthy. I have it running on a 50ah lithium battery and it lasts about 5 days depending on how hot is is and how insulated i make it. Ill hook up the solar next trip and see if it sustains it

 

[Gazziza]

I personally love having a fridge for camping. A few years ago after a long 4-5 trip where the ice in my cooler melted, froze, melted again and made everything a mess I said enough, made the switch and have not looked back. The fridge is a game changer IMO and enhances your camping experience above any other mod. I take it in and out of the vehicle as needed but its super useful for day to day trips as well. I would start with a simple portable battery pack like a dometic plb40, GZ, Jackery, ecoflow, bluetti etc etc. You don't need a complicated dual battery system to run a fridge. In my previous 4Runner I had a proper dual battery system from Offgrid4x4 (formerly Offgrid Engineering) and had two Northstar G35 batteries, a BlueSea ML-ACR isolator, sPod etc etc. While robust its not needed and over the past 2 years in which I've owned my LC I have only been running a portable Dometic plb40 and an Overland Solar Bugout 130 blanket and it has been a great combo.

I have both a Dometic CFX35 and National Luna 50L Weekender. The Dometic has been flawless while the NL has given me fits. I purchased it because it was supposed to be the grand daddy of fridges but it has failed on me on multiple trips. Temperature regulation has been inconsistent and one trip it would go from 0C - 8C which killed the battery faster along with spoiling food. I have now regulated it to a garage fridge plugged into AC and it still has wide temp fluctuations even with AC home power. I'm pretty sure it's just my unit but it's pretty disappointing given that its a $1200 fridge.

 

[residualboulders]

the false floor in the picture is very interesting. Can you elaborate more on this setting?

I made that platform myself with some cabinet grade birch 3/4" plywood. DIY version of the Goosegear platform at about a $600 discount. I'm sure it's not as nice - but good enough for who it's for. I fabricated some brackets to mount to the factory cargo loop bolt locations. Recessed some T-nuts in the back side so I can add and remove things like the fridge slide without having to remove the platform. Added a bedliner coating to the front and back. I pull the fridge and slide out in the winter months (takes 5-10 minutes) and leave the platform. Holding up well so far.

 

[CreeperSleeper]

I ran a Truck Fridge (Ingel D) 47qt fridge for 10 years. I paid $550 for it and it ran non-stop in my LX470 for four years until going to trip only duty. Last year, my ex got it in the divorce.

I just ordered the same style fridge on Amazon for $219.99 ($20 off coupon right now) with free shipping. ( Amazon product ASIN B0BYZNH4NX ) I think that having a fridge is a luxury that I am willing to pay for. I'm even thinking about buying a small one for the crawler!

All of that being said, WHY ARE YOU GUYS SPENDING $2,000 ON A DAMN FRIDGE?!?! Holy crap...

 

[FrazzledHunter]

I ran a Truck Fridge (Ingel D) 47qt fridge for 10 years. I paid $550 for it and it ran non-stop in my LX470 for four years until going to trip only duty. Last year, my ex got it in the divorce.

I just ordered the same style fridge on Amazon for $219.99 ($20 off coupon right now) with free shipping. ( Amazon product ASIN B0BYZNH4NX ) I think that having a fridge is a luxury that I am willing to pay for. I'm even thinking about buying a small one for the crawler!

All of that being said, WHY ARE YOU GUYS SPENDING $2,000 ON A DAMN FRIDGE?!?! Holy crap...

$2000 seems a bit much but I'm not familiar with all models at the moment like I was when I was shopping for one. I paid way under $1000 (IIRC) on a REI 20% off sale for my dual zone Dometic CFX3 75L. Oh maybe it was close to $1000 with tax and shipping. But that was 2 years ago. I must say it's been wonderful. Temperature monitoring and control has been spot on and the phone app is really well thought out. Right now it's on sale for $999.00 during their 20% off sale.
REF:
https://www.rei.com/product/172595/dometic-cfx3-75-dual-zone-powered-cooler

 

[lx200inAR]

To be fair to the OP and others $2k was including whatever power upgrades them deemed necessary to run the fridge. I mean if you add up the power requirements and if you want a slide, even going the cheap route you are going to bump up on $1k.

You pretty much need at least these 4 things:

Fridge
Someway to mount the fridge
Battery
Battery Charger


In a lot of cases the upgraded power will have other benefits on top of the fridge, so maybe not fair to put all that cost into the fridge category.

Getting to see everyone’s install plans here could help someone put a nice setup together.

Fridge ($250-$1500)
The Amazon special fridge listed above (I’ve seen that brand talked about before with favorable reviews, so I wouldn't be too scared) <$300 even for the bigger one. IceCo has some nice "overlandy" fridges in the $500-$800, and then around $800 is where the prices on the name brand ones start (Dometic, ARB, etc...) Some Dometic models on pretty good sale right now on Amazon (45L and up seem to be 20-30% off) (or the REI discounts which i assume are similar)

Mount: ($0-$500)
A home brew rear deck would make it pretty easy to add a diy slide, let’s say $150. Or could be as simple as a ratchet strap to the rear seat tie downs. Or as fancy as some kind of pivoting commercially made slide.

Battery ($300-$1000)
For me this would be a Solar Generator or a Lithium battery in the cab. I personally can't see adding a second lead acid battery to my rig, as they are pretty inefficient as deep cycle batteries. A simple "solar generator" setup runs $300-$1000 depending on how fancy you want it. I’d say you probably need close to 1kWHr storage if you want to be out for more than a few days. I like the Ecoflow lineup, especially now that they have started to use the LiFePO4 cells. The new Eecoflow delta 2 boxes look nice, but more importantly everyone is clearing out the delta mini. The older mini and river pro don’t have the LiFePO4 cells. Either chemistry will probably last 5-7 years fine, but the new batteries will last longer. Also, plenty of other “off brands” on Amazon (VTOMAN is probably the one I’d look at currently)

Charger ($100-$300)
Either a portable solar panel or a higher wattage DC to DC charger that maximizes the charge input on your solar generator. This solution probably runs a couple hundred bucks as well. Portable solar panels run $1-$2/watt. I've read about using a 12v to 24v converter to double the DC input into a solar generator, as they are generally current limited when charging with DC. But there are a lot of variables in all that depending on which solar generator and DC to DC chargers you are using.

All the little things you need to add to make it all work as a system definitely pile up. Based on all the speculation i provided above, you'd need to spend somewhere between $650-$3200 for a proper fridge setup. Or just get a $250 fridge and shove a frozen 1gallon bottle of water in it. Let it run off the start battery until the low voltage cutoff kicks in and then start the rig to recharge battery and do it all over until your block of ice is gone.

 

[FrazzledHunter]

To be fair to the OP and others $2k was including whatever power upgrades them deemed necessary to run the fridge. I mean if you add up the power requirements and if you want a slide, even going the cheap route you are going to bump up on $1k.

You pretty much need at least these 4 things:

Fridge
Someway to mount the fridge
Battery
Battery Charger


In a lot of cases the upgraded power will have other benefits on top of the fridge, so maybe not fair to put all that cost into the fridge category.

Getting to see everyone’s install plans here could help someone put a nice setup together.

Fridge ($250-$1500)
The Amazon special fridge listed above (I’ve seen that brand talked about before with favorable reviews, so I wouldn't be too scared) <$300 even for the bigger one. IceCo has some nice "overlandy" fridges in the $500-$800, and then around $800 is where the prices on the name brand ones start (Dometic, ARB, etc...) Some Dometic models on pretty good sale right now on Amazon (45L and up seem to be 20-30% off) (or the REI discounts which i assume are similar)

Mount: ($0-$500)
A home brew rear deck would make it pretty easy to add a diy slide, let’s say $150. Or could be as simple as a ratchet strap to the rear seat tie downs. Or as fancy as some kind of pivoting commercially made slide.

Battery ($300-$1000)
For me this would be a Solar Generator or a Lithium battery in the cab. I personally can't see adding a second lead acid battery to my rig, as they are pretty inefficient as deep cycle batteries. A simple "solar generator" setup runs $300-$1000 depending on how fancy you want it. I’d say you probably need close to 1kWHr storage if you want to be out for more than a few days. I like the Ecoflow lineup, especially now that they have started to use the LiFePO4 cells. The new Eecoflow delta 2 boxes look nice, but more importantly everyone is clearing out the delta mini. The older mini and river pro don’t have the LiFePO4 cells. Either chemistry will probably last 5-7 years fine, but the new batteries will last longer. Also, plenty of other “off brands” on Amazon (VTOMAN is probably the one I’d look at currently)

Charger ($100-$300)
Either a portable solar panel or a higher wattage DC to DC charger that maximizes the charge input on your solar generator. This solution probably runs a couple hundred bucks as well. Portable solar panels run $1-$2/watt. I've read about using a 12v to 24v converter to double the DC input into a solar generator, as they are generally current limited when charging with DC. But there are a lot of variables in all that depending on which solar generator and DC to DC chargers you are using.

All the little things you need to add to make it all work as a system definitely pile up. Based on all the speculation i provided above, you'd need to spend somewhere between $650-$3200 for a proper fridge setup. Or just get a $250 fridge and shove a frozen 1gallon bottle of water in it. Let it run off the start battery until the low voltage cutoff kicks in and then start the rig to recharge battery and do it all over until your block of ice is gone.

" I've read about using a 12v to 24v converter to double the DC input into a solar generator, as they are generally current limited when charging with DC. "
This is what we're doing. I posted a block diagram earlier.
We have several alternatives depending on the scenario:

1. Charge the Yeti solar generator with the alternator/Victron, run the fridge at 12 V and anything else at camp off the Yeti
2. Connect the Victron to the 2nd battery and run the fridge at a regulated 24V
3. Connect the fridge directly to the 2nd battery at an unregulated 12V

We used scenario 2 when the Yeti was depleted and we had to charge it in a hotel room.

 

[TeCKis300]

So now we're talking a triple battery system and further cost, complexity, and SWaP (size, weight, and power)?

Maybe just me but seems excessive?

 

[FrazzledHunter]

So now we're talking a triple battery system and further cost, complexity, and SWaP (size, weight, and power)?

Maybe just me but seems excessive?

The 2nd battery is ALWAYS with the vehicle. It can do things the Yeti can't like jump start the car. The Yeti is mobile and can do things the 2nd battery can't like supply 1500W 120VAC. The system we have isn't JUST for the fridge. I was just showing how the fridge fits into the whole picture which for us is camping. Camping is changing. What used to be powered exclusively by propane and liquid fuel is now electric.

If you're running JUST a fridge and that's all you want then you could run it from one of the cigarette lighters. But the power goes off when you turn the engine off...aaaaaand away we go!

 

[TeCKis300]

The 2nd battery is ALWAYS with the vehicle. It can do things the Yeti can't like jump start the car. The Yeti is mobile and can do things the 2nd battery can't like supply 1500W 120VAC. The system we have isn't JUST for the fridge. I was just showing how the fridge fits into the whole picture which for us is camping. Camping is changing. What used to be powered exclusively by propane and liquid fuel is now electric.

If you're running JUST a fridge and that's all you want then you could run it from one of the cigarette lighters. But the power goes off when you turn the engine off...aaaaaand away we go!

That's a fair point and I've been guilty of it too. Make that 4 batteries I've had onboard if we're talking 1) starter 2) house 3) solar generator 4) jump starter.

Just trying not to scare others into thinking any of this is a requirement for a fridge.

 

[HSTexan]

I don't have a fridge yet, but it's something I want to get eventually. I frequently camp with people who have fridges and I am super jealous when I have to stop and pull my cooler out to drain excess water and then top off with ice--meanwhile they have ice cream and cold beers at the ready that are never soaking wet. It's a luxury item for sure and on my list of wants, but I have it slotted much lower than other things. Convenience is becoming a huge priority in my camping--the more convenient things are, the less annoying they will be, the happier I am, and the more I want to go out and stay out longer. Fridges are undeniably convenient.

What I'm doing is building the fridge setup in stages so that I can take advantage of the new parts with my existing gear immediately. I added a slide with tilt to make using my cooler less of a headache and to save my back from wrestling a loaded down 80lb cooler on and off the drawers by myself. It's a relatively small investment which allows me to focus on finishing up larger priorities of mine while still benefiting my existing setup--and it's future proof to work with the fridge I have picked out. I have a small solar setup right now, but will probably want to upgrade for it to run a fridge. I'll still see the benefit of that in the meantime without a fridge as it will power all of our electronics at camp. That will come next and then finally the last piece would be a fridge. It's a way to avoid sinking $2k all at once while still improving usability of existing gear.