Fridges

I can tell you from personal experience I was going on a Cape York trip May this year and taking a yellow fridgemate by Evakool.

We wanted to use it as a freezer, however could not use it as it was running continuously and it was impossible to maintain power to it.
Everkool when advised about the hassle did supply a new power cord/adapter but to no avail.

Prior to this experience I would have said buy one without any hesitation, but now I'm not able to say this, maybe the fridge was just a dud as it was just out of warranty too and I'm aware this is not the usual characteristic of the brand, as I've only previously heard good reports.

I think I would check out their 'white' Evakool fridge, must be different somehow.

Maîneÿ . . .

Try searching for "fridgemate". Also try googling it, rather than just exploroz. There are many discussions about these fridges elsewhere as well. Most of the feedback seems positive.

I've got the white version of the Eva Kool, had it for 10 years, super fridge run it as a freezer 100% never misssed a beat, had a check up recently and is running just as good as new.

We have had ca 50ltr Evakool for 5 years attached to an additional battery in the back of the Forester and it has been great. However, when the temp hits 40+ they need to be kept in a very heavily shaded area or the fault light will come on. When that happens we just turn the fridge off and don't open it.

As for battery usage we had a deep cycle battery and I left the Evakool run for 64 hours straight, normal temp setting of 5. What I didn't know at that time was I had destroyed the first life of my deep cycle battery. One more incident of flattening the battery, I used it for 3+ years after the original experiment, was the end of it. I blame my own ignorance for that dilemma and the Evakool will keep frozen food frozen and in the right conditions will freeze stuff but the biggest problem is the constant opening of the fridge, now we have a caravan the Evakool keeps the beer supply very cold and frozen stuff in good health.

When we do use it stand alone on battery I will turn it off at night.

Regards
Paul H

One of the guys at work had a yellow fridgemate fridge and he sent it back as the lid delaminated and split. The white fibre glass ones are prone to damage if treated improperly ( glass cracks ), but they are a great esky so they make better fridges.
Cheers

We have a 70 litre and run it as 1/2 fridge 1/2 freezer - non stop on our battery system . Have 3 solar pannels and if we get 3 or 4 rainy (no sun days )hubby has to kick start the darn genni.

We are not often in heat over 40 to really test it out. We had to turn it right down in Gunnedah last week as the fridge froze a few things.

Happy with ours although it did get sent back early on and was fixed by the factory.

Di

Hi Travellin,

Ive got a 55lt yellow one in the camper and it works well. I've never had an issue with it but I've noticed it takes longer to get down to temp then my 40lt engel with a twozone on it.

Cheers Wilko

I looked at Evacool years ago & thought they were OK however I thought "When in Rome" so I phoned some outback tour operators & asked what fridges were the most reliable & could handle the 40+ heat......ENGEL was the answer. My next question was "Well for X amount of $$$ I can by two @@@@ brand fridges for the price of One Engel" I answered my own question.....There's no substitute for quality...Had Engel 40 & 29lt....never a drama.

The camping store story is interesting, certainly not the 'norm' for these fridges. I have 2 of the white ones. One is fairly new while I'm not sure of the age on the other. The older one certainly works better than the new one though because it's cooling plate completely encloses the freezer section while the new one only has 3 sides.

During a 6 month trip with both, we relied on the old one to freeze things from 'fresh', while the new one could only hold them once they were already frozen.

Here's some pics of the old one.

Mark.
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I have used several different types of camping fridges now.
Ranging from 3way chesscolds, to engels, etc.
We finally purchased a 47lt evakool, and also looked at the 55 fridgemate.

They come with a 5 year warranty on the case, 2 years on the compressor etc.
Friends have the 55, and it works well, its got the same size freezer as fridge space, compared to the 47 which has a smaller freezer section, but same size fridge area.

We had an issue with ours that it was not correctly charged when first made, after dropping into the factory, and speaking to Rod, he mentioned that a few went through like that, and were addressed with warranty.
After ours was correctly vac'd down, and charged correctly, its performance is excellent.
With any fridge ensure the evaporator is fully frosting, indicating a full charge of refrigerant.

I would also suggest that with any traveling fridge, your best to have it down to operating temp before you head off, as these are only small fridges, and to expect them to freeze stuff on the run, with warm stuff in the fridge, it will take a few days to get them all down to temp.

So fill freezer with pre frozen stuff, and fridge with pre cooled stuff, and run for a few days to let the temp settle and you will get good results from it.
Some run the fridge on high, empty for a day or two before filling with pre frozen/ cooled items.


We still use ours for bringing shopping home during the heat, and just turn it on on the way to the shops, and its good for that too.
Just offering ways to get best performance, and battery life out of your setup for touring.

we spent a month on the road, and also used a 20lt icecool esky to use as a crisper, swapping out 1.25lts frozen bottles from the freezer to the icecool every 2nd day or so. They also kept pre chilled beers perfect for days like this too.
Enabled us to run freezer/ fridge/ crisper/ day cooler, and allow extra stuff to be purchased that would not fit in the fridge as a 3/4 empty carton was still in the fridge etc.

you get the idea.

Trains

See post 80730 my 55l evakook fridgemate was stuck out the back window of ute canopy having presumably been smacked to oblivion by the not secured suffciently dual battery system, bugger.

So i don't think that's any comment on the fridge which served me faultlessly for about a year.

But I will reiterate amazement at the white evekool. I used to own the esky version. On a trip to Woodford many years ago I put deep frozen 2l milk containers full of water into it (I arrived from Brisbane) in the morning (swear in tent) 50C days, by the night the day temperate water bottles put in at the morning to provide end of day comfort, had frozen solid, much to the disappointment and befuddlement of the parched tent patry. do the math's, to me this almost opposed the 2nd law of thermodynamics, where had the heat been extracted to?

i foolishly sold that esky.

With a compressor attached I think it must be incredible.

Can't comment on the yellow one - but we have had an Evakool ED70 for over 10 years. Performance is outstanding wether used as a fridge or freezer - or a combination unit with an insulated barrier.
It is the only camp fridge that we've owned that is capable of 60°C below ambient. We have seen it run at minus 24°C - and believe me when I say that at temperatures like that - ice cream is VERY hard!

Highly recommended!