New Fridge, got it under $275

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

It was 2 of us LOL we had a ton of fruit and snack foods plus meals and extras, then add that I drink maybe 10 bottles of water a day myself, a beer or 3 with cigar at fire at night and for us, we found one fridge to be not enough and frankly, I rather have 2 of these than anything with regular or dry ice. I am hooked for sure on these. I appreciate the idea and maybe for others it works but for us, we are going with 2, and bu they way, fully stocked (pre-chilled), I found the fridge easy to maneuver and carry. Also again I am talking a week camping.
Jim

Glad to, hear they are easy to move. I cant lift very much anymore and was trying to decide if I should go with just a 20 qt. frig. ore than likely once I get it in the car and loaded, that is where it will stay rather than unloading it. My kitchen will be more like the British-Aussies do, out the back of my rig. I think it will work better for an old man because everything I take out of the rig is small or light and easy to pack away when I close down the kitchen and back door. If you ever want to see what I am wanting check out armoredcockroach on YouTube. He is an older gentleman, retired British military and totally organized. He has a LRD1 very similar to my rig. I have watched his video's for two years and he is my inspiration as a camper.

armoredcockroach videos - YouTube

BTW to understand the Brits speech I have to slow the video to 75% in order to understand them, they seem to talk faster than I can comprehend and by slowing down the video they almost sound like us south westerners LOL

 

[maxboxa]

i bought one off of amazon the other day and almost regretted not looking at ebay now. completed items show them selling for $167.50 to $495. All the ones sold under $295 are by sellers with 0 or negative feedback. I hope you all got yours. Bad ebay sales send my blood pressure through the roof.

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

i bought one off of amazon the other day and almost regretted not looking at ebay now. completed items show them selling for $167.50 to $495. All the ones sold under $295 are by sellers with 0 or negative feedback. I hope you all got yours. Bad ebay sales send my blood pressure through the roof.

I was only taken once on ebay. I bought tires from a pic. and when they arrived it was not the same tire. eBay refunded my money somehow and kicked him off. He even had a very good sales record. Anyway I didn't have any loss ...

 

[Viking1204]

i bought one off of amazon the other day and almost regretted not looking at ebay now. completed items show them selling for $167.50 to $495. All the ones sold under $295 are by sellers with 0 or negative feedback. I hope you all got yours. Bad ebay sales send my blood pressure through the roof.

I'll be picking up my fridge today from the UPS Store. The seller I purchased mine from had a 98.1% feedback score. I don't think I've ever bought something from someone with a lower feedback score than 98% and so far I have never had a problem. Ebay polices their seller pretty well IMO.

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

i bought one off of amazon the other day and almost regretted not looking at ebay now. completed items show them selling for $167.50 to $495. All the ones sold under $295 are by sellers with 0 or negative feedback. I hope you all got yours. Bad ebay sales send my blood pressure through the roof.

maxboxa, I don't know what kind of ref. you purchased from amazon but I think you bought a compressor type. They are the best type. The ones on ebay (even amazon) that generally sell for under $300 are thermolelectric type refers. They work decently but are inferior to the compressor type units. Even Wal-Mart sells the thermoelectric Colemans for around $100. It mat work fine for your needs as long as the outside temperature isn't very high when camping. In a refrigerated car going down the road they are very efficient. It's the ambient temperature that should concern you the most.

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

I'll be picking up my fridge today from the UPS Store. The seller I purchased mine from had a 98.1% feedback score. I don't think I've ever bought something from someone with a lower feedback score than 98% and so far I have never had a problem. Ebay polices their seller pretty well IMO.

You were saying yesterday or before you might buy another ref. We talked about Dry ice coolers some. Have you considered the Thermoelectric type for you second ref. ? For $100 you cant beat them with an ice cooler box. The advantage all ice coolers have over the thermoelectric ref is how often you open one, in my opinion.

 

[Viking1204]

You were saying yesterday or before you might buy another ref. We talked about Dry ice coolers some. Have you considered the Thermoelectric type for you second ref. ? For $100 you cant beat them with an ice cooler box. The advantage all ice coolers have over the thermoelectric ref is how often you open one, in my opinion.

Jim SoG is the one who was talking about getting a second fridge. One is enough for me, I have no problem using a cooler for canned or bottled drinks. The fridge is much better for food items.

So now I'm confused, what kind of refrigerators are all these portable ones? Off to Google I go!

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

Jim SoG is the one who was talking about getting a second fridge. One is enough for me, I have no problem using a cooler for canned or bottled drinks. The fridge is much better for food items.

So now I'm confused, what kind of refrigerators are all these portable ones? Off to Google I go!

Confused huh, what about me and my dementia ? I could have sworn it was you I was talking to. Oh well maybe Jim SoG will get this message too. I don't want to tie up the thread too much.

 

[Viking1204]

I feel you Lanlubber, I'm 49 and my memory definitely isn't what it used to be. I straight up couldn't remember the name of a co-worker the other day, not that I see him everyday but damn that was embarrassing! Looks like these refrigerators are compressor type according to google!

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

Thanks @Jim SoG for the info. I was lucky enough to nab one . Just received it today.

Lucky you, I keep missing the sales. Let us know what you think about yours. Did it have a name brand on it ?

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

I feel you Lanlubber, I'm 49 and my memory definitely isn't what it used to be. I straight up couldn't remember the name of a co-worker the other day, not that I see him everyday but damn that was embarrassing! Looks like these refrigerators are compressor type according to google!

I knew the one you got was a compressor type because I was looking at them too. I wish I could just go ahead and blow $100 just to find out how well the thermoelectric ref's. do. I have heard both good and bad about that type and I know a lot of truckers buy them. That should be good enough for me. Wal-Mart has Colemans for less than $100 and don't even sell the compressor types except in the stand up model 110v type.
Now I remember why I thought it was you I talked to about the ice coolers. We had a conversation about the dry ice I was talking about putting into the cooler instead of wet ice. Dum de dum dum !!!

 

[Viking1204]

@Lanlubber just picked up mine today, it's a Costway and looks like it is in good shape, will pull it out of the box and have a good look at it when I get home. I'm going to look into dry ice in my local area and experiment with it if the cost isn't that much more. I understand it will cost more but over time is it a better deal due to how long it lasts. BTW, when using dry ice do you end up with a cooler full of water, I assume not?

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

@Lanlubber just picked up mine today, it's a Costway and looks like it is in good shape, will pull it out of the box and have a good look at it when I get home. I'm going to look into dry ice in my local area and experiment with it if the cost isn't that much more. I understand it will cost more but over time is it a better deal due to how long it lasts. BTW, when using dry ice do you end up with a cooler full of water, I assume not?

No water which is another advantage. I will be trying it out if I can get up to Colorado over the fourth of July. Right now I'm having problems with my legs and knees. The doctor sent me to emergency a couple weeks ago for what he thought might be blood clots. It turned out to be Bakers Cyst behind the knee cap. Causes severe swelling and cuts off blood supply to my feet. I'm type 2 diabetic anyway so it doesn't help that situation. Going to see the Doc in an hour to see why his treatment isn't working. Now both legs are swelling and it's kinda painful to walk.

I was pretty sure you bought the Costway but there was someone else before you that was buying a frig. with no name and said it was a name brand that just didn't have the name on it for some reason. He bought his for $279 also. We have talked so much on the subject I forget who said what. The one thing I remember though was all have been bought off eBay I think, I think, I think !

 

[OtherOrb]

Got my fridge while I was out of town. Here are some pics of it. Definitely a returned or damaged in shipping item. There's a crack by the back handle. The crack oesn't affect operation, but it does mean this could not reasonably be sold as "new."

 

[OtherOrb]

For those of you not familiar with dry ice be sure to do a little research about the safe handling of it. It is over -100 degrees Fahrenheit and will "burn" your skin with frostbite if touched. If I recall it is basically froze carbon dioxide. You've probably seen it use around halloween time, put in bowls of punch to cause the steam/smoke effect over the drink.

Very much this.

Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. CO2 freezes at -109.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Handle it with extreme care.

It's called "dry ice" because it doesn't melt. Instead, it simply sublimates (vaporizes) at atmospheric pressure. I highly recommend you do not put dry ice in an air-tight refrigerator like the Costway. Your fridge cannot keep temperature low enough to keep the CO2 in solid form. The CO2 will turn to gas and could easily overpressurize the fridge. If that happens, eventually something will fail. Hopefully in a non-explosive, non-destructive manner, but it's not impossible for the sealed, pressurized fridge to fail catastrophically.

1 kg of CO2 in gas form has an uncompressed volume of about 500 liters. Your 54 quart refrigerator has a volume of approximately 51 liters. Assuming you put 1kg of dry ice in a 51 liter sealed container, using the ideal gas law, we can estimate the change in pressure after all of the dry ice sublimates. It's pretty straight-forward: the pressure inside will have increased by about a factor of 10 to 10-atm or ~147 PSI. Add approximately 147 PSI for each kg of CO2 you add to the container for any reasonable amount of dry ice.

The danger of a pressurized fridge is a complicated question. The internal sheath of the fridge appears to be some sort of rigid plastic or PVC. There's a layer of foam insulation. The external sheath is also a rigid. It's dangerous to use PVC or other plastics for compressed air for a reason (because when they do fail, they do so catastrophically). Home air compressors only produce pressures up to about 175 PSI, similar to our theoretical fridge-dry-ice-bomb.

Simply put, I would recommend not putting dry ice into a sealed fridge.

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

Got my fridge while I was out of town. Here are some pics of it. Definitely a returned or damaged in shipping item. There's a crack by the back handle. The crack oesn't affect operation, but it does mean this could not reasonably be sold as "new."

View attachment 103815View attachment 103816View attachment 103817

You have my kind of luck. Others have bought the ones that have been sold as damaged but I don't think any of the OB guy's got one that was actually damaged. Does it look like some epoxy might seal the crack ?

 

[OtherOrb]

You have my kind of luck. Others have bought the ones that have been sold as damaged but I don't think any of the OB guy's got one that was actually damaged. Does it look like some epoxy might seal the crack ?

Yeah, it's a simple external shell crack. Doesn't go through to the interior. I'll seal it for moisture and preservation reasons, but it's not a functional problem. For $279, I expected a missing handle, missing wiring, broken latch, or something similar.

The fridge is functional. It took less than 2 hours to bring the temperature from 70-F to 31-F; empty. The insulation isn't the best, though. I unplugged it about two hours ago and it was back up to 61-F when I just checked it. But, that was empty. It will take longer to cool but longer to warm with food in it and with it powered up.

I'll write up a review when we're back from our trip in early July.

 

[maxboxa]

thanks landlubber - this is the amazon purchase. definitely compressor type. i need to keep telling myself there's an easier return process and i'm getting a non-damaged unit so i don't feel bad for spending the extra coin over the ebay items
Costway 54qt on Amazon

maxboxa, I don't know what kind of ref. you purchased from amazon but I think you bought a compressor type. They are the best type. The ones on ebay (even amazon) that generally sell for under $300 are thermolelectric type refers. They work decently but are inferior to the compressor type units. Even Wal-Mart sells the thermoelectric Colemans for around $100. It mat work fine for your needs as long as the outside temperature isn't very high when camping. In a refrigerated car going down the road they are very efficient. It's the ambient temperature that should concern you the most.

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

thanks landlubber - this is the amazon purchase. definitely compressor type. i need to keep telling myself there's an easier return process and i'm getting a non-damaged unit so i don't feel bad for spending the extra coin over the ebay items
Costway 54qt on Amazon

It only hurts for a little while. It's an investment that even 2 years down the line you could recover 2/3 of you purchase price "me thinks." My oldest son is making it a little easier for me to buy one now. He sent me a $200 Amazon gift certificate for Fathers day, to buy something I need. Now I don't know what to spend it on since I need several things as bad as I need a ref.. maybe a tent---No, Maybe a roof rack...No, Maybe a a a a a Inverter and another battery ???? woe is meeee

 

[Viking1204]

Unboxed my EBay purchased Costway fridge last night and from what I can tell it was brand new, still had the clear film covering the display and all the cables and AC charger were in their original plastic. The only problem I see with it so far after a good inspection of it is a tiny puncture in one corner of the lid, pic makes it look bigger than it really is, just looking at the fridge it's hard to notice. I'll most likely power it up this weekend to test functionality.