Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 23:34:22 -0300
Reply-To: "Giasson, Pascal (DNR/MRN)" <Pascal.Giasson@GNB.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: "Giasson, Pascal (DNR/MRN)" <Pascal.Giasson@GNB.CA>
Subject: Re: fridge replacement?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
"Forget fridges in a vanagon" Well, we spent 8 weeks in our westy 2 adults 2 kids with that fridge and an electric Koolatron cooler. After one week we gave up on the Koolatron cooler because it would drain the auxilary battery too quickly and I think it was taxing the charging system too much. We were driving accross Canada so we had to keep the Koolatron with us but it became a pantry for dry goods. After about 2 weeks I finally got our system down pretty good and the Dometic served our purposes for the rest of the trip...partly because we made due with what we had. I'm not saying that it's a great set up, but as I gained experience on how to run it, it was an adequate set up for us. I basically used the propane mode as much as I could, when electricity was available that was the best, and the battery mode was only used occasionally, and is by far the least efficient mode. Once I got it cold, the trick was to keep it cold. Buy cold/frozen food to put in it, buy cold beer (which we would usually buy near the end of the day and cram it in there...just to keep it cold until we got to a campgroung...) I have to say thought that it was not a hot summer, I installed a small interior fan to circulate the interior air, I put radiant insulation where I could, and I made sure everything was running properly on the fridge. For short trips now we usually bring an ice cooler for items we don't care that gets wet and we use the dometic for things we want to keep dry. So from my experience, if the fridge is runnign properly, its not blistering hot out (over 30C), you don't overload it with warm items, and your experinced at how to run it, it serves it's purpose.
Pascal
'84 Westy
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Forget fridges in a vanagon! They don't carry enough, are noisy, heat the
cabin, consume precious resources and barely keep beer cold enough to drink
(unless you're German) for a good camping weekend. Remove it and install
shelves for more storage (finally! a decent accessible place to put folded
clothes). Then, buy a nice cooler and a $1.99 block of ice and you're good
to go for 3+ days in the wild. $325 will buy a lot of ice.
But, keep the fridge! It adds a bunch to the resale value since the buyer
will think it's a great idea too. Heh heh, suckers.
My $0.02
Ryan
'82 camper van 'Beethoven'
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