The advantage is that you can see the stuff in the refrig easier.
The huge disadvantage is that when you open the front door you let all the
cool air out. Lots of times these refrigs are made so you can open the top
or open the side door.
Have you looked at the Catalina 35? Much nicer boat.
Sailor

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 16:36:32 -0500, "G&G" wrote:

The advantage is that you can see the stuff in the refrig easier.
The huge disadvantage is that when you open the front door you let all the
cool air out. Lots of times these refrigs are made so you can open the top
or open the side door.
Have you looked at the Catalina 35? Much nicer boat.
Sailor

Another advantage is that often you can fit a larger frig in the cabin
with the front opening models. This is good for a liveaboard where
you have shorepower but as you say, you let all the cold air out every
time you open the door, so on a cruising boat you will have a much
higher energy requirement. Installing clear vertical plastic strips
inside the door that prevent all the air from flooding out at once
help, but still, a top loading one is more efficient.


Weebles Wobble
(but they don't fall down)

I'm coming to this late, and I don't think I even saw the original thread,
but here's my two cents:

We - after wrestling with the nasty configuration of our reefer top for lid
orientation (OEM is to make a hinge with a smaller section which has to be
opened first in order to clear the overhang of the cockpit footwell in the
area) - went with front opening for all the positive reasons, plus the
ability to get stuff out and have meaningful shelves. Our door was
restricted to 21" due to the width of the U, but that was the only
concession. We also have to live with the 6" of insulation on the face,
which limits the access in real terms, the arc of the door being interrupted
by the stove, and not enough room to open it the other way. If we find it
onerous enough, we might revert the design, later, to a vacuum panel or two,
but for now, it's still a 6" block.

The reason we went for it was talking with a variety of others at the SSCA
meeting last fall. One of them provided a very interesting technical
detail...

A cubic foot of air takes only 14BTU to cool. So, in our not-quite 7CF
reefer, assuming an entire exchange of air (not ever gonna happen without
leaving it open for a very long time), it would take well under 100BTU to
replace the cold air.

Put another way, it would take about two thirds the energy to convert one
pint of 32 degree water to ice. Put yet another way, if our static daily
load is 4KBTU (that's the estimate for both reefer and freezer, in the
tropical environment we expect), and we open (and fully exchange the air)
the door 10 times, we've increased the load (only) 25% over leaving it
closed the entire time.

Given how long we'd have to leave the door open in order to get something
from the lower levels (which is not insignificant in our reefer - the floor
of the reefer is 30" from the lid top, requiring R&R of significant volumes
of stored stuff, whereas the back of the reefer, on shelves, is 22" from the
door front, but we can get at it easier than leaning over, as well), we
anticipate only a small difference in actual BTU-sage.

Food for thought, if you'll excuse the expression :{))

L8R

Skip, temporarily home again

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

In article ,
"Skip Gundlach" skipgundlach sez use my name at earthlink dot
fishcatcher (net) - with apologies for the spamtrap wrote:

The reason we went for it was talking with a variety of others at the SSCA
meeting last fall. One of them provided a very interesting technical
detail...

A cubic foot of air takes only 14BTU to cool. So, in our not-quite 7CF
reefer, assuming an entire exchange of air (not ever gonna happen without
leaving it open for a very long time), it would take well under 100BTU to
replace the cold air.

That's not the reason to go top-loading. It's the door seal, which will
knock your BTU rating way down. Even a drain can significantly increase
your cooling needs.

--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
Xan's Pages: http://members.dca.net/jerelull/X-Main.html
Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

"Jere Lull" wrote in message
...

That's not the reason to go top-loading. It's the door seal, which will
knock your BTU rating way down. Even a drain can significantly increase
your cooling needs.

We'll have two seals - one at the box, and one at the lid, flush hinges and
secure latches - which is about as good as we can do without major
fabrication (we could have gone to three with different shaping of the
blanks for the door and receiver, but didn't want to mess with that, as this
project is only 5 months old already). We think that will be pretty good.

We also have no drains, not only for that reason, but for the complexity of
the installation/fabrication and depth lost under the box needed to
accomplish it. The fabrication is, at this moment, at the smooth glass
interior, ready to prime and then awlgrip after the spillover installation
(may already be finished). The doors' insulation was cut from the installed
6" insulation, freehand, which provided a small irregularity. Sanding to
square removed that and gave room for clearance for the epoxy to go on the
new surfaces (the rest of the foam is already epoxy-encapsulated). Laminate
from the countertops' leftovers (8' length in just a little over 4' needed),
epoxied in place, is the surface of the receiver and baulk on the doors.

Top loading for the freezer, as it's possible without restriction, and side
loading for the reefer, as the configuration of the M46x required a two-part
lid to clear an overhang...

In town only briefly, I'll head back to work for another couple of weeks in
a few days.

L8R

Skip - refitting as fast as I can while attending to emptying thei house,
600 miles apart, and Lydia - moving this weekend into her shoebox cottage
(325SF), and continuing to build the kitty



--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain