Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
That is so far off that I just have to reply. I am not doing this as a
rebuttal to your asinine comments but for the benefit of those lurkers who might be interested in the thought process. The TOTAL cost of my refrigeration system is a little under $4K including the vacuum insulation, separate keel cooled compressors for the freezer and refrigerator, custom made double sealed lids with solid surface tops and the materials for the cabinet work. Under the worst case load it will consume about 90 amp hours. My alternator produces 270 amps and the battery bank is a little over 800 amp hours so the average charge time required for refrigeration will be about 20 minutes assuming no output from the solar panels. If you want to consider ALL the cost of the batteries, alternators, 3 stage regulator and solar panels as exclusively used for refrigeration add another $3K. But that is not really fair because refrigeration is only 1/3 of my energy budget. A fair figure for the total cost of my refrigeration system is about $5K. If I were really considering this project on a cost accounting basis I would not own a boat in the first place but money in excess of that required to survive comfortably is useless unless you can have some fun with it. But lets give a little cost accounting a try and see what happens. To estimate the real cost of the system we need to make some assumptions. First we amortize the capital costs. Let's assume over an economic life of 10 years at the end of which an additional $3,000 will be required to refit the mechanical parts and vacuum panels. Assuming an average use of 120 days a year that works out to about $4.40/day including opportunity cost of the capital at 6%. Now let's consider the operating costs. Two unshaded 150 watt solar panels in the tropics should be expected to optimally produce about 160 amp hours of charge. But things are never optimal so to be conservative we will assume only 25% or 40 amp hours (that is average. Not every day.) so the engine must provide the remaining 50 amp hours or about 12 minutes of run time. From a separate calculation of engine expenses that includes capital costs, overhauls, oil, general maintenance and fuel at $4/gallon over the service live, that is about $1.20 ignoring the 5 gallons of water that will be produced at the same time and the value of any forward progress the boat makes.. For good measure, lets throw in another $360/year reserve for repairs. So the total cost of the system can be conservatively estimated at about $6.60/day. Obviously not as good as the $.60 to $1.00 a day that a home refrigerator cost but about the middle of the cost range for marine refrigeration. For comparison, a simple $300 foam insulated ice box of similar capacity will require about 3,600 BTUs a day or 25 pounds of ice. The current price of a 10 lb. bag of ice in the Bahamas and Virgin Islands is $2.50 and considerably higher in Martinique, St. Martin and other Caribbean islands. That works out to about $6.25 a day with no freezer and not including the value of lost personal time constantly having to get more ice. -- Glenn Ashmore I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com "JAXAshby" wrote in message ... Jax, you still don't have a clue. Really, Glenn? But I am not the one with $18,000 dollars stuck into a reefer system that requires me to run the engine for three hours a day. |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Boater wannabe questions (Pacific Northwest area) | General | |||
Calling reefer upgraders with VIP experience | Boat Building | |||
Calling reefer upgraders with VIP experience | Cruising | |||
Lots of questions :) | General | |||
Newbie questions | UK Power Boats |