schlepper
John m. Harrison
When I bought my boat in 2012, I remember thinking how small the refrigerated box was from a volume perspective. At some point, I tried to look up all prior owners of my boat from before the person I bought it from. I found two owners back, an older fellow, who was in his early 80's at the time (circa 2015). As I talked to him, he told me with a great deal of pride, how he had re-done the icebox. He had cut and glued pink insulation into the original fiberglass tub, then fiberglassed over the insulation. That explained a lot. I then proceeded to rip all of it out as it severely restricted the amount of refrigerated food we could carry and I was not so sure that it helped that much and as I ripped it out, saw that he had no moisture barrier nor a drain, therefore, you can imagine the pink foam was wet and therefore it's insulation capability was compromised.
I have since installed painted wire closet shelving in there, but in all reality, I am not happy with the efficiency of the storage capacity. Furthermore, I had replaced the original Adler Baber air cooled compressor and refrigerated box with a Vitrifrigo unit that seems to do a pretty good job of keeping the box cool except for the outboard end of the box.
This is where my idea springs forth.
Has anyone utilized 2 refrigeration units? 1 to keep refrigerated foods cold, and the other to keep frozen goods? I was thinking instead of doing major surgery to completely rip out and replace my tub and insulation, it might be better to built a freezer box within the icebox, to the outboard end of the icebox, and use that for frozen foods, away from the engine, and insulate underneath of the icebox better and under the lid better? I have found that the major glaring insulation problem with our original iceboxes is underneath the countertop and the lids to the icebox itself are grossly un-insulated and I feel sure act as heat sinks, making the refrigeration units work very hard and drawing a lot of amperage.
My second question is this: Does anyone have pictures of the interior of their icebox that I could get some ideas about how to better construct shelving, etc. Inside the fiberglass tub? I will attempt to attach a photo of mine as it exists now... I lose a lot of room to the outboard end and at the bottom given the odd shape of the icebox tub.
The second photo is the before photo with the prior owner modified box. It may not look like it but a great deal of space was lost with that configuration and I was never convinced the R value was that much better than the stock icebox.
I have since installed painted wire closet shelving in there, but in all reality, I am not happy with the efficiency of the storage capacity. Furthermore, I had replaced the original Adler Baber air cooled compressor and refrigerated box with a Vitrifrigo unit that seems to do a pretty good job of keeping the box cool except for the outboard end of the box.
This is where my idea springs forth.
Has anyone utilized 2 refrigeration units? 1 to keep refrigerated foods cold, and the other to keep frozen goods? I was thinking instead of doing major surgery to completely rip out and replace my tub and insulation, it might be better to built a freezer box within the icebox, to the outboard end of the icebox, and use that for frozen foods, away from the engine, and insulate underneath of the icebox better and under the lid better? I have found that the major glaring insulation problem with our original iceboxes is underneath the countertop and the lids to the icebox itself are grossly un-insulated and I feel sure act as heat sinks, making the refrigeration units work very hard and drawing a lot of amperage.
My second question is this: Does anyone have pictures of the interior of their icebox that I could get some ideas about how to better construct shelving, etc. Inside the fiberglass tub? I will attempt to attach a photo of mine as it exists now... I lose a lot of room to the outboard end and at the bottom given the odd shape of the icebox tub.
The second photo is the before photo with the prior owner modified box. It may not look like it but a great deal of space was lost with that configuration and I was never convinced the R value was that much better than the stock icebox.