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Should you turn your fridge off at night?


Zayna

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We have a 12v Shoreline fridge. My chap insists on turning it off every night saying it will flatten the batteries.

 

Is that what you're meant to do, and will it indeed flatten the batteries?

 

Apologies if I'm being a simpleton.

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He is right of course, if the Fridge is turned off, it won't flatten the batteries :)

 

The debate is whether it uses more power to leave it turned on, or to turn it off at night and let it re-cool in the morning. Personally, I just leave the fridge on when I'm on inverter power :)

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We have a 12v Shoreline fridge. My chap insists on turning it off every night saying it will flatten the batteries.

 

Is that what you're meant to do, and will it indeed flatten the batteries?

 

Apologies if I'm being a simpleton.

 

Its rubbish to say it will flatten the batteries overnight per se.

 

Having said that any load will eventually flatten the batteries if they don't have the capacity to do the job or have not been charged with an adequate amount of power. Ideally they should be fully charged at some point every day and ones close to their end of life, due to much diminished capacity, should be replaced as a set.

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Thank you all for your replies.

 

In order to maintain a quiet life, I might leave him to his switchy-offy routine. Woe betide me if I argue the toss and we indeed are left with flat as a fluke batteries.

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We have a 12v Shoreline fridge. My chap insists on turning it off every night saying it will flatten the batteries.

 

Is that what you're meant to do, and will it indeed flatten the batteries?

 

Apologies if I'm being a simpleton.

 

It shouldn't flatten them assuming your bank is in reasonably good condition, it will though of course run it down some, more if it's working hard in the summer (unlikely this year!!).

 

If you do switch it off you need to keep the door closed as much as poss otherwise you will probably lose any gain of not using it when it starts to cool itself from 'scratch' again when you switch it on.

 

Conversely if you run it and keep the door closed it will run less often anyway.

 

On balance we don't switch ours off and have had no problem (5 x110ah batteries)

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When this topic came up before someone suggested turning fridge up to maximum (coldest setting) when engine running and batteries charging or fully charged and turn to a lower setting for when engine stopped. Didn't work for me on account of bad memory. Fridge left on high overnight from 4pm until 10:30am had extremely detrimental effect on batteries over only a couple of days. But, if you get into a routine it could work.

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Its likely to use the least power over night since it will generally be cooler than during the day, and the door will not be opened (unless you get the midnight munchies!). If you do turn it off, when its turned on again in the morning it will run for a good while as it brings the temperature back down again, so the overall power saving will be minimal especially with a modern efficient and well-insulated fridge. We certainly leave ours on over night (otherwise the big bag of ice for G&T might melt ohmy.png

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He is right of course, if the Fridge is turned off, it won't flatten the batteries smile.png

 

The debate is whether it uses more power to leave it turned on, or to turn it off at night and let it re-cool in the morning. Personally, I just leave the fridge on when I'm on inverter power smile.png

 

I think the debate is more complicated than that, You have to factor in the availability of power also. I only have 2 batteries so power is limited overnight but my solar panel means i often have a surplus in the day so it is fridge off at night for me.

 

You can also improve things by making sure the fridge is as full as possible (i fill with bottles of water & cans of beans etc if low on stuff i want to keep cool) that way when you open the door all the coolness doesn't get lost.

Also when adding warm things I do it during the day when the surplus power will cool them

 

It's a lot quieter with it off as well

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When this topic came up before someone suggested turning fridge up to maximum (coldest setting) when engine running and batteries charging or fully charged and turn to a lower setting for when engine stopped. Didn't work for me on account of bad memory. Fridge left on high overnight from 4pm until 10:30am had extremely detrimental effect on batteries over only a couple of days. But, if you get into a routine it could work.

I was just going to post the same reply, we have it set on max when cruising, turn to 1 when stopped, then off last thing at night ... icebox still well frozen in the morning. Mind you, we are only looking to keep stuff for a few days.

We switch off at night mostly to stop the noise ...As you say .... remembering to do it is the hardest part.

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Modern fridges seem to use about 30AH per day. Taking overnight to be an 8 hour period (1/3 day) that is about 10AH. But probably less than that due to being cooler than average in the galley and not opening the door, so lets say 8 AH overnight. That would be 3% of capacity even if you only had 2 x 110AH. If your electrical system can't stand 8AH over night there is something horribly wrong with the batteries and/or setup. In our setup (4 x 100AH) I don't notice a difference between the SoC on going to bed, vs on waking up. Once we hit the bats with the electric kettle and toaster, that is a different matter!

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Once we hit the bats with the electric kettle and toaster, that is a different matter!

 

Is your hob and oven broke????

 

We have long since given up using either of these when off shoreline as they hammer the batteries.

Edited by The Dog House
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. Once we hit the bats with the electric kettle and toaster, that is a different matter!

A damned nuisance they can be, flying around the boat at night and keeping one awake with their squeaking, good on you.

 

We usually turn our fridge off at night; if we don't, the red power light is flashing by the time we get up unless we have cruised for a long time the day before. I assume this means that power is running low, even though we have two leisure batteries (both our previous boats had only one each) which are, I think 110ah.

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I have mine going all the time. 12v danfoss 'Fridgemaster' domestic size. it doesn't use much power and we do use the freezer bit most of the time for ice cream.

 

I heard that if you fill any vacant space with loo rolls it means warm air doesn't get in so the thing stays cooler and the compressor runs less often.

 

I suppose they would get soggy but the principle makes sense

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I suppose they would get soggy but the principle makes sense

 

Keep them wrapped in plastic clapping.gif

 

The same principal works with anything you keep in the fridge - as mentioned above if you keep cider, or lager (yeuch) or wine it will do the job just as efficiently and you'll have some benefit from keeping it cold icecream.gif

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We have a 240v fridge and a clever inverter that shuts itself down when nothing is using 240v power to reduce standing losses. We leave them both on all night. The amount of power they use overnight is very small, much less than the fridge uses during the day, because it's cooler at night and the fridge isn't being opened.

 

If you want to save power, leave the fridge closed as much as possible, much more effective than switching it off.

 

 

MP.

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Is your hob and oven broke????

No, they both have private incomes. But the hob burns gas which produces water vapour, doesn't auto-switch off and is slower than the electric kettle. The toaster is much more efficient than the gorilla and again goes pop when the toast is done, rather than having to stand over a hot gorilla which only goes pop when you have fed it too much grass. I have to confess that on the rare occasions when we are not planning to cruise that day, we do revert to steam power (well gas, anyway).

 

A damned nuisance they can be, flying around the boat at night and keeping one awake with their squeaking, good on you.

No not those sort of bats silly, I meant the cricket bats we use to move items such as the tea and toast from galley to dinette. So much less effort to whack them over than to carry them. And catching skills are improved in the process.

Edited by nicknorman
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I love bats. We went to Chester Zoo earlier this year and I stood very still in a corner of the bat house, they came and landed on my shoulder and in my hair. Amazing experience.

 

Slightly o/t but it jogged a nice memory.

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No, they both have private incomes. But the hob burns gas which produces water vapour, doesn't auto-switch off and is slower than the electric kettle. The toaster is much more efficient than the gorilla and again goes pop when the toast is done, rather than having to stand over a hot gorilla which only goes pop when you have fed it too much grass. I have to confess that on the rare occasions when we are not planning to cruise that day, we do revert to steam power (well gas, anyway).

 

No not those sort of bats silly, I meant the cricket bats we use to move items such as the tea and toast from galley to dinette. So much less effort to whack them over than to carry them. And catching skills are improved in the process.

Assuming our rapid boil gas kettle is filled with only the required amount of water it actually boils PDQ, so quick in fact it's not worth wandering off to do anything else. Not quite as quick I would agree is the grill in the oven, but when we are on the boat we ain't in a particular rush to get any where so we prefer to nurture our expensive batteries rather than boil water with 'em. I don't get the point about water vapour given any kettle will do this anyway, not sure at all how much will be produced by the hob. Edited by The Dog House
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