Ice box or 12v

So for the past year I have not had any modern refrigeration in my small off-grid skoolie kitchen. I've been using ice to put in the RV refrigerator I have in my bus and that will keep milk cool for a couple of days and if I put frozen meat in it it would be good for a day or two before cooking. I would really like to have more long-term food storage. Would using an actual old fashioned ice box be any more effective in keeping food cold and fresh and not going through so much ice? I would love to get a 12 volt chest freezer and just freeze my own eyes and keep me on hand but I'm not sure if that is in my budget this year. Has anyone use a 12 volt chest freezer if so please let me know how it worked out for you.

Gail Jardin wrote: I would love to get a 12 volt chest freezer and just freeze my own eyes

Sounds pretty harsh. We have an energy efficient 12v cooler that we love (Unique Brand) but our long term goal is to improve our root cellar/basement to keep cool through the summer. Our cooler uses about 250-300 watts per day, which is no problem for our 480 watt system and we only use it during summer. We could set it to operate as a freezer but have never tried it.  

I used to freeze ice bricks in the freezer, and then use it in an esky/cooler. I got tired of it very quickly - I don't like dealing with ice and the mess that it makes, but maybe it would work for others.

There’s a few different things I’ve tried over the years:

The first is keeping dairy animals - when there’s fresh milk coming in every day, there’s no need to keep it at any particular temperature.

An old fashioned meat safe kept in a shady place can work, depending on the temperature outside. Another thing is evaporative cooling - there’s a ‘coolgaardie safe’ where a tray of water is placed underneath a meat safe, hessian fabric covers the meat safe and the ends of it are in the water, so that the fabric wicks up water from the tray, and the wind cools the air around it. A zeer pot, made from two terracotta pots, some damp sand, and damp fabric works in a similar way.

If you have access to a stream, spring, or well, you can keep things cold by putting them in the water inside a bucket or crate.

I’m not sure if this would work on a bus, but I know some houses have a tube running under the long side of the house, and coming up through a cupboard, with a chimney at the top of it, to direct cold air into the cupboard and warm air out of the top.

These methods have more ‘it depends’ about the temperature than modern refrigeration, so sometimes things don’t keep as well in them. I have found that salted butter keeps better than unsalted, cheeses in natural rinds or beeswax wrap keep better than cheese in plastic, and fermented or raw dairy keeps better than non fermented.

Different brands of 12v freezers use different amounts of electricity, so it’s worth doing research into it, as when I looked into it, some of them used the same amount of watts as a regular freezer, while others used hardly anything at all.

Over the past couple of years I have been [obsessively?] watching videos by Liziqi and several other copy-cat homestead vloggers in rural China. One thing that I have noticed is that no one in rural China appears to own a refrigerator or an ice chest. They all just apparently ferment everything for preservation. No electricity needed, regenerative paradigm approved.

What's the one thing nearly every single one of my friends have in common? They all have Sandor Kat's Art of Fermentation on their book shelf!

If you would like a "green" paradigm solution, GoSun has some affordable 12 volt cooling options. And GoSun's latest 12 volt option is a fridge and a freezer with lots of other bells and whistles that you can scoop up for a fairly decent price if you support their current crowd-funding campaign.

Warning: I have never owned a GoSun product, so I cannot attest to their quality. I just have my eye on them almost as closely as I do on Liziqi and friends! :-)

Making ice is not energy efficient, BUT you can make it while the sun shines so you don't need batteries, just more solar. The key is to size your cubes/blocks so they can fully freeze in a few hours.

Small (dorm and apartment) sized fridge freezers are WAY more efficient than they used to be, the low cost solution may be a $200 apartment fridge plus a small upgrade to solar and batteries.

I did a lot of looking when we started our schoolie build. I bought a Whynter refrigerator/freezer. 12-24-110 volt, mounted it on a slide out,but it is portable if we want to remove it from the bus.  A true compressor reefer.
Our solar has no problem keeping up with it. Cheaper than an RV refrigerator. Not long after I bought the Whynter a warehouse that supplies some of our after market auto parts started to sell their version and the price of a similar sized copy cat product was now 1/2 of what I paid for the Whynter. Look on you tube: van life, schoolie and Whynter in your querie. Amazon sells the Whynter and CSI Black Ice is the copy cat. We're trying the Black Ice version at an off grid canoe/kayak rental site this season I'll have a first hand review of that in a month or two of use. A variety of configurations one door, two doors different sizes but all of them thermostatically controlled so you can split reefer/freezer or run as just one temp for both compartments. Whyntner also offers a dedicated taller chest freezer.
You can see the similarities of the two brands. The CSI is shown on the slide that I use in the bus. I do have an insulated case that goes over the CSI and it helps tremendously on when it runs, many of the vanlife people mention using blankets to improve efficiency.
I agree with Mike, Liziqi has a great series of videos worth watching.

Mike Kenzie wrote:Over the past couple of years I have been [obsessively?] watching videos by Liziqi and several other copy-cat homestead vloggers in rural China. One thing that I have noticed is that no one in rural China appears to own a refrigerator or an ice chest. They all just apparently ferment everything for preservation. No electricity needed, regenerative paradigm approved.

What's the one thing nearly every single one of my friends have in common? They all have Sandor Kat's Art of Fermentation on their book shelf!

If you would like a "green" paradigm solution, GoSun has some affordable 12 volt cooling options. And GoSun's latest 12 volt option is a fridge and a freezer with lots of other bells and whistles that you can scoop up for a fairly decent price if you support their current crowd-funding campaign.

Warning: I have never owned a GoSun product, so I cannot attest to their quality. I just have my eye on them almost as closely as I do on Liziqi and friends! :-)

We do a lot of veggie fermentations and dairy fermentations but no fermented meats I'd be a bit apprehensive to try that. I do need to learn more about smoking and salt curing as right now all I really do is canned stew chunks and make jerky. I'll see if I can get my hands and a copy of that book and check out the link for the 12 volt cooler freezer

Kate Downham wrote:I used to freeze ice bricks in the freezer, and then use it in an esky/cooler. I got tired of it very quickly - I don't like dealing with ice and the mess that it makes, but maybe it would work for others.

There’s a few different things I’ve tried over the years:

The first is keeping dairy animals - when there’s fresh milk coming in every day, there’s no need to keep it at any particular temperature.

An old fashioned meat safe kept in a shady place can work, depending on the temperature outside. Another thing is evaporative cooling - there’s a ‘coolgaardie safe’ where a tray of water is placed underneath a meat safe, hessian fabric covers the meat safe and the ends of it are in the water, so that the fabric wicks up water from the tray, and the wind cools the air around it. A zeer pot, made from two terracotta pots, some damp sand, and damp fabric works in a similar way.

If you have access to a stream, spring, or well, you can keep things cold by putting them in the water inside a bucket or crate.

I’m not sure if this would work on a bus, but I know some houses have a tube running under the long side of the house, and coming up through a cupboard, with a chimney at the top of it, to direct cold air into the cupboard and warm air out of the top.

These methods have more ‘it depends’ about the temperature than modern refrigeration, so sometimes things don’t keep as well in them. I have found that salted butter keeps better than unsalted, cheeses in natural rinds or beeswax wrap keep better than cheese in plastic, and fermented or raw dairy keeps better than non fermented.

Different brands of 12v freezers use different amounts of electricity, so it’s worth doing research into it, as when I looked into it, some of them used the same amount of watts as a regular freezer, while others used hardly anything at all.

I have dairy goats that is part of the reason why I need a way to keep my milk cold. I like to save up a gallon or two before making cheeses. I do small batches of kefir and yogurt right now and have a little bit of milk that's just chilled to add to coffee in the morning. I do put pint and quart jars of milk in an ammo case in our Creek to keep it cold at times I guess I need to amp up my use of that natural source of coolness and find a way to make it larger or a more sturdy permanent storage cooler area.

I've never been to "Burning Man" but a couple I know go almost every year, one thing they take is an evaporative cooler that consists of clay pots and sand. A smaller pot inside a larger pot and sand fill between. Saturate the sand and in a hot dry climate it keeps their beer cold. I'm not sure where you are at but if non humid it might be worth a look.

I’ve been living off-grid for the last 14 years. Refrigeration has been a bit of a struggle. At the beginning, I bought a lovely looking, antique icebox, but it didn’t do what I needed. I tried ice cubes, ice blocks, wrapped the ice in newsprint, covered it in sawdust, lined the icebox with extra 1” foam insulation…..nothing I did gave me more than a day, at best.

I also tried the Zeer pot with the two clay pots, sand and water. Unfortunately, the Nova Scotia climate doesn’t lend itself to that method.

Then I picked up a small, RV 3-way fridge and used it on propane for many years. Other than the 20 lb tank that I needed to fill every 18 days or so, it served my refrigeration needs.

When the fridge pooped out, rather than have it repaired I switched to a Mobicool 12 v cooler because I had increased the size of my solar array in the years prior. Other than not having an option for frozen food, this cooler has worked very well for me and I no longer have the propane expense.

I’ll add that last summer I learned how to pressure can meat and that replaced my need for a freezer (other than wanting ice cubes and the occasional ice cream).

Mike Kenzie wrote:Over the past couple of years I have been [obsessively?] watching videos by Liziqi and several other copy-cat homestead vloggers in rural China. One thing that I have noticed is that no one in rural China appears to own a refrigerator or an ice chest. They all just apparently ferment everything for preservation. No electricity needed, regenerative paradigm approved.

What's the one thing nearly every single one of my friends have in common? They all have Sandor Kat's Art of Fermentation on their book shelf!

If you would like a "green" paradigm solution, GoSun has some affordable 12 volt cooling options. And GoSun's latest 12 volt option is a fridge and a freezer with lots of other bells and whistles that you can scoop up for a fairly decent price if you support their current crowd-funding campaign.

Warning: I have never owned a GoSun product, so I cannot attest to their quality. I just have my eye on them almost as closely as I do on Liziqi and friends! :-)

I have the whole Go Sun package.  We have a solar powered table to charge the batteries and once the fridge is cold, then it stays cold for ages. They have lights, cooler/ freezer, matched batteries and other bits. The biggest down side is the cost.  The hot/ cold car fridges are not very effective in that they only heat and cool based on the the ambient temperature, so if it is 40 degrees C outside the fridge will only cool to 20 degrees C.   The old fashioned ice chests that my parents took camping had an ice block in the top and it lasted for a week. We collected the iced water and used it with home made cordial.

Depending on the amount of water available, you can add salt to a bowl of water and hang hessian over a box.  This will create a huge amount of cooling. The salt eventually crystalises and adds to the available evaporation surface.  It also keeps flies and ants away.  In Australia they are Coolgardi Safes.  See pictures.

Someone said: I’m not sure if this would work on a bus, but I know some houses have a tube running under the long side of the house, and coming up through a cupboard, with a chimney at the top of it, to direct cold air into the cupboard and warm air out of the top.
Would anyone understand what this pipe set-up is called?  In what era houses was it used?  I've never heard of this even in turn of the century houses which are common in my area.  Was this supposed to convert the cupboard to a fridge?

Earth tube cooler

No matter what route you take, be sure to crunch the numbers first to make sure your needs are met from all perspectives.  I decided on a 110v conventional refrigerator.  The savings more than paid for the added solar needed to keep things operating.

The sides of the Cooligard Safe remind me of the strawlike evaporative cooler pads  Maybe that's what they are only larger?  Can someone clarify please.  Also is the white strip a piece of fabric that drips water down from the water tray on the top onto the pads?  How do you make sure the water hits the pads and doesn't just drip onto the floor?

Barb Morris wrote:I’ve been living off-grid for the last 14 years. Refrigeration has been a bit of a struggle. At the beginning, I bought a lovely looking, antique icebox, but it didn’t do what I needed. I tried ice cubes, ice blocks, wrapped the ice in newsprint, covered it in sawdust, lined the icebox with extra 1” foam insulation…..nothing I did gave me more than a day, at best.

I also tried the Zeer pot with the two clay pots, sand and water. Unfortunately, the Nova Scotia climate doesn’t lend itself to that method.

Then I picked up a small, RV 3-way fridge and used it on propane for many years. Other than the 20 lb tank that I needed to fill every 18 days or so, it served my refrigeration needs.

When the fridge pooped out, rather than have it repaired I switched to a Mobicool 12 v cooler because I had increased the size of my solar array in the years prior. Other than not having an option for frozen food, this cooler has worked very well for me and I no longer have the propane expense.

I’ll add that last summer I learned how to pressure can meat and that replaced my need for a freezer (other than wanting ice cubes and the occasional ice cream).

canning meat and making jerky are definitely an a necessity in my situation. But I sure love a rare steak and a juicy burger every now and then! Since I have Kinder goats and mini pigs as my largest livestock I can stagger when I butcher animals and still get a few steaks and fresh meat and can or dehydrate the rest in a reasonable amount of time. I've only briefly looked into the propane refrigerators mainly because I'd like to simplify and just use solar but also because I'm afraid of what would happen to the food if the tank ran out and I didn't have a backup tank and I was flooded in for a few days or a week.

Denise Cares wrote:The sides of the Cooligard Safe remind me of the strawlike evaporative cooler pads  Maybe that's what they are only larger?  Can someone clarify please.  Also is the white strip a piece of fabric that drips water down from the water tray on the top onto the pads?  How do you make sure the water hits the pads and doesn't just drip onto the floor?

The sides are made of hessian or sacking which get wet.  The cloth hanging over the edge is a wick that takes the water up and allows it to flow over the sides.  The wick is cotton or similar that can be wet and draw the water up.  The way to check is to hold the cloth in a dish of water and see if the water wicks up it.  If it does it is suitable.

Robert Ray wrote:I did a lot of looking when we started our schoolie build. I bought a Whynter refrigerator/freezer. 12-24-110 volt, mounted it on a slide out,but it is portable if we want to remove it from the bus.  A true compressor reefer.
Our solar has no problem keeping up with it. Cheaper than an RV refrigerator. Not long after I bought the Whynter a warehouse that supplies some of our after market auto parts started to sell their version and the price of a similar sized copy cat product was now 1/2 of what I paid for the Whynter. Look on you tube: van life, schoolie and Whynter in your querie. Amazon sells the Whynter and CSI Black Ice is the copy cat. We're trying the Black Ice version at an off grid canoe/kayak rental site this season I'll have a first hand review of that in a month or two of use. A variety of configurations one door, two doors different sizes but all of them thermostatically controlled so you can split reefer/freezer or run as just one temp for both compartments. Whyntner also offers a dedicated taller chest freezer.
You can see the similarities of the two brands. The CSI is shown on the slide that I use in the bus. I do have an insulated case that goes over the CSI and it helps tremendously on when it runs, many of the vanlife people mention using blankets to improve efficiency.
I agree with Mike, Liziqi has a great series of videos worth watching.

Thanks for the detailed review on these two RV freezers I'm going to definitely look into them and try to figure out how much more solar I would need to run them than what I have right now.

My approach to off-grid refrigeration has been to use an ordinary compact chest freezer (~5 cu ft) with a thermostat that allows you to set the temperature to anything you want. This is the unit I use

https://www.amazon.com/Johnson-Controls-A19AAT-2C-Temperature-Controller/dp/B0002EAL58

If memory serves, I use about 200wh in the summer, and maybe closer to 100 in the winter when the indoor temps in my yurt are lower. Organizing the stuff in a chest-fridge is a bit of an art form, but I have been very happy with it. The thicker insulation makes it a lot more efficient than a similarly sized dorm-fridge, and the cold air doesnt all dump out when you open the door. The compressors on the smaller sizes are not very power hungry. I think mine draws like 85 watts when running, and could probably start on a 500w inverter. Considering you can pick one up (or you could in the before times) for like 200 bucks, it ends up being a lot cheaper than buying something designed for 12v DC use. The savings would probably be enough to buy an inverter and extra solar panels.

@Paul Fookes - I looked up hessian and it appears to be a form of jute or burlap.  Perhaps can use those materials or even some evaporative cooler pads in a pinch?  Has anyone tried making one of these using a simple wood frame?

Denise Cares wrote:@Paul Fookes - I looked up hessian and it appears to be a form of jute or burlap.  Perhaps can use those materials or even some evaporative cooler pads in a pinch?  Has anyone tried making one of these using a simple wood frame?

They used to be wooden framed boxes - usually hardwood.  The straw/ evaporative AC pads are too thick and with out power to draw the air through it will not work.  The hessian is open weave and this is necessary to create the high level of cooling.  It also holds a large volume of water.  Sometimes, the hessian was looped into the dish and held in place with a rock.  Jute is the material from which hessian and burlap are made.  Burlap is usually more refined now-days and burlap is what hessian is called in America and Canada.  For a Coolgardi safe, the hessian or burlap needs to have an open  weave.

For about six years we've been using ice in a cooler. We have 1L squareish plastic bottles that we fill with water and freeze. They can sweat a bit, but very little mess to deal with. We have a towel that gets swapped out occasionally underneath the bottles to soak up moisture. Totally happy with that part.

To begin with we just used a regular cheapo, foam insulated cooler. Like you, we found it was good for a couple days. Then we got a more expensive rotomolded cooler, not one of the big names, but a cheaper knock off. That made a huuuuge difference. We still swap out a couple ice bottles every day or two, but everything in the cooler is way colder. We used to have to eat stuff quite quickly so it didn't go bad, but now it stays cold enough that it keeps longer.

This whole system only works because we've got freezers at work that we can put our bottles into, though.

Carl Nystrom wrote:My approach to off-grid refrigeration has been to use an ordinary compact chest freezer (~5 cu ft) with a thermostat that allows you to set the temperature to anything you want.

I've also tried this setup, I bought a used chest freezer that is maybe 5-6Cu ft, and plug it into an adjustable thermostat set to 36F +-2F. Tested in the garage with a Kill-a-watt and as a freezer set at 0-5F it used 850whr per day, and with it set to 36F it used 240whr per day. For keeping milk and other items cold but not frozen, this can work well with a solar setup. If you have plenty of power during the day, you could also use it as a freezer and keep say 4 plastic gallon milk jugs mostly full of water, freeze them during the day, then cut the power when the sun drops and use the ice overnight. You could adjust how much ice is needed at the bottom to keep items towards the top half cold but not frozen that way but that might involve a bit of trial and error.

Denise Cares wrote:Someone said: I’m not sure if this would work on a bus, but I know some houses have a tube running under the long side of the house, and coming up through a cupboard, with a chimney at the top of it, to direct cold air into the cupboard and warm air out of the top.
Would anyone understand what this pipe set-up is called?  In what era houses was it used?  I've never heard of this even in turn of the century houses which are common in my area.  Was this supposed to convert the cupboard to a fridge?

I know recently it's been known as a "cool cupboard" in Australia.

Here's some articles about them:

https://www.abdallahhouse.com/2012/05/cool-cupboard-completed.html

https://lewishamhouse.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/pantry-and-cool-cupboard-in-action/

Thank you Kate Downham for the links - very cool!!

I have used both methods.  Using an icebox requires getting ice from somewhere, usually a trip into town.

After getting a 12 volt fridge it is my preferred method.

For someone who is a bit handy and mechanically minded, another solution is the installation of a eutectic plate system.  It is as I understand it, what is called phase change technology -  as the plate contents go from solid to liquid, they give up energy ie cold and the unit can be set up to optimise power usage.   Attached is one manufacturer here in Australia who sends kits around the world.  It is interesting technology and does not use too much power. https://www.ozefridge.com/ I am aware of a couple who built a eutectic fridge for their truck RV build by converting an old freezer found at the rubbish tip.  Unfortunately, there are not many references to this technology in a web search for eutectic and USA.  Having had a hydrocarbon (no fluorocarbon) cooled refrigerator for lots of years, we have found that it is more efficient to have the fridge and freezer managed individually by their own compressor system.  So in effect, while one unit, the fridge and freezer are effectively two independent units. For off grid power systems, soft start motors minimise the amps required to kick the compressor.