sailing casita

When we bought Casita she came with cold plate refrigeration, which was a huge upgrade from the ice box we had on ‘Imi Loa. At some point Casita had 2 compressors, an AC compressor that was still installed and an engine driven compressor that had been removed. The system worked okay on shore power but definitely had its drawbacks. The cold plates took up a lot of room and partially blocked the top access to the fridge.

When we took Casita up to the Delta last year it was amazing having a fridge, but we didn’t want to run the engine to chill the cold plates at anchor so we bought a Honda 2000 generator. These generators are known for being quiet, I don’t have much basis for comparison but the thing was noisy! We would run it for about an hour to charge the batteries and then an hour to freeze the cold plates almost every night. While it was running we would watch a movie, it was the only way to tune out the sound. At least we didn’t have any neighbors to annoy!

This year we decided to put in a 12v dc compressor and a bin evaporator. Our fridge box is actually quite large (not necessarily a good thing) and I’m sure it is not very well insulated so it really should be rebuilt from the ground (or keel?) up, but that is a bigger project for some time in the future. We looked at a lot of options and ended choosing a Dometic system with a Danfoss compressor and horizontal bin evaporator. I don’t have any good photos of the installation but takes up almost no room compared tot he cold plates.

We have been pretty happy with the system. It needs frequent defrosting, but that is due to the fridge box design and the doors. The freezer space is tiny and definitely not a deep freeze (no keeping ice cream on board) but any freezer is better than none. The biggest plus is no more generator! It is a DC system so we can run it on our solar panels (post to follow) which is amazing! We are very aware that the system will likely struggle in tropical waters so we may end up adding insulation to the inside of the box in the future but for now it works great for our needs.

The other big improvement to the fridge is the new shelf we built. As you can see in the top picture, there is a shelf for the back half of the fridge, but the front half was just one big space with no way to organize it. Very frustrating. Our fridge has a top opening and a side opening so if we stacked bins on top of each other to fill the space, the side door wouldn’t be much use. I am aware the side door spills lots of air and isn’t efficient but I really like it. The top cover is the main counter space in the galley so it’s great to be able to get into the fridge even when in the middle of making dinner without moving everything off the top. Plus, the side door allows me to reach the bottom of the fridge without climbing in head first!

The new shelf basically looks like an extension of the existing shelf and has made a world of difference in being able to keep the fridge organized.