ok guys....fridge

Ignazio

Ignazio

VIP Member
Messages
129
Vehicle
T5 Beach
Well, one of the first things we need to buy, as soon as possible: a fridge.
I'm looking for the best in terms of quality, capacity (litres internal), space (external dimensions)....
so any suggest? what do you use onboard your Beach or similar? how do you block it while driving, if necessary.
how do you use it? travelling, camping....
I think we'll keep the 3 seats closer, ready to prepare the bed, so that we hav rear space for things.
we still don't have a pod...i'm waiting to understand...spaces and..other..but anyway in the possible future pod or similar we'll put pans and eating things....not the fridge.

ok: it has to be a compressor fridge. I read about WAECO:
cf35?
cfx35?
cdf35?
or more?
alternative?

thanks
ignazio
 
I have a CF40 Waeco:

We find it fits under the multiflex board on a 3 seat beach in the boot which is good, I hear it will not fit under a 2 seat version which has a lower bed.

We can extend the bed with the fridge in place on the floor behind the passenger seat but it takes up all of the floor space there making the use of the left swivel seat difficult.

We sometimes wonder if we would have been better with a smaller one as it is quite large but the capacity of the 40 is very nice and useable. We can easily fit milk, 1.5l drink bottles and plenty of food inside. It also runs from mains and 12v, as the beach has a smaller battery we tend to use mains whenever we can but run the fridge from 12v when driving. I calculate that the fridge should however work for 2 or 3 days on a 68ah Beach battery before running the engine or ehu would be needed, smaller fridges may last longer. The fridge does have auto cut out for low voltage to avoid damaging the battery, which is handy.

One thing to bear in mind, if we had an internal pod too, there would be no floor space left when the 3 seat bed is extended. We are still working it out though and I am sure we will find different ways of organising our beach.

I wrote an amazon review after 18 months of light use, I will paste it below with some of the negative points:

I bought this model to use in my campervan.

It's a good size (and quite heavy) and has a top loading design which is great in an efficient fridge because cold air stays in when the doors open rather than falls out as per a side loading one.

It will go all the way down to -18 and has served us well in times of need as a spare freezer.

It has also kept food cool for camping trips and is relatively efficient on 12v but can be used on mains too.

However we have always found the thermostat wildly inaccurate and it has only got worse after 18months of very infrequent use. For example to get a 5c inside temp I find that you have to set the Waeco to 0c or -1 but occasionally this will result in freezing food most of the time it wont. Anything set between 1 and 5c will generally result in 10c which is probably too warm for food really.

Looking online you will find lots of stories of too cold or too warm waecos with poor support from Waeco themselves. When things go wrong they aren't much help. It seems these can be very expensive to fix unless you're brave enough to try yourself.

We do love it but the inconsistency is unforgivable for such an expensive device. Buy with caution and return at first sign of problems is my advice.
 
We have a cheap 12v/240v coolbox from Lidl. About £25 if I remember correctly. This sits behind the passenger seat when we're driving and outside under the awning or in the drive away awning when we're on hookup.

It's a bit hit and miss with temperatures but you get used to it. I'm actually going to hack a thermostatic control for it so that we can keep the temperature to a set value.

This has been fine for us including a 6 week trip around italy last September/October.

Given Matt's copy of his review above the temperature regulation on the waeco sounds as good as a cheap alternative like ours.
 
Not gone down the fridge route yet - just been away for a week as a family of 5 in our beach and our trusty cool box was ok - kept the milk cool etc. We tend to shop every day as space for food is a premium and pick stuff up when passing shops. Cool box has always been fine in the summer too - freeze a 4 pint milk and it keeps things cold for a few days - then just buy ice when needed.
 
Ive been monitoring the fridge this week on in the house and it's been holding 5c well, that said its set to 0c


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Have got a waeco cfx40 and would definitely recommend it. They are expensive but well worth it. Ours gets used as a spare fridge for parties and ran for 4 days at Glastonbury 2 years ago. I wouldn't go any bigger than ours before it would become unwieldy. It gets kept behind the passenger seat most of the time for convenience (cans snacks etc). Fits in perfectly with the 3 seater bed down when turned so that the longest side faces the door. It does fit under the multiflex board in the back but isn't really convenient for access in there.

All in all a great fridge goes down to minus 18 and will fit a good sized supermarket shopping trip in.

One thing to note those is make sure the undervoltage cut off is set to low fridge will turn on/off sooner when the battery charge starts to drop.
 
Riofer said:
I've got a VW one available if you are interested?

Brand new unused. Came on our ex demo but we don't need it.
Click to expand...

VW means? For the Beach? 2 seats?
I have 3 seats bench…
Can you give me details?
Dimensions? Litres?
Price…
Thanks
 
Bought the Waeco CF35. We are a family of 5 with a 3 seater beach so space is limited.
Still struggling a bit with where to store it.
It does fit nicely onder the multiflex board but it's not very convenient to have to open the trunk to get the milk.
When making up the bottom bed, the fridge fits nicely below the bed in the trunk. So first fold seat flat, adjust bench position, put fridge in the trunk behind the bench(sideways), then fold the seat in the other direction to bed position.
But it's a bit too heavy to move around frequently, especially when filled.
It does fit nicely in a james 3.0 module http://www.california-camping.de/t5...ia-beach-startline-mulitvan-kuechenmodul.html
but then you have little space to store cups and plates and food itself.
I think I may just try to fix the waeco to the floor next to my ikea alex kitchen module. Then the table can be mounted on top.
 
Thank you for the Alex idea. Already grabbed it, just worried might not have enough space behind the driver seat (left one) So have to make some modifications to join it with a storage box.
What is really great it is almost same height with a table.
 
Here's my current setup, Ikea Alex on the right, waeco to the left of it. It can be opened, even when the table is up. What I don't like yet is that when making the bed I have to move the Waeco. One possible place is on top of Alex, another is behind the other seat (but I'd rather keep that space for Porta Potti), or yet another is behind the multiflex board, below the flat folded seat (a bit hard to put it there and hard to lift it out, but it does fit nicely and uses lost space effectively).

1.jpg

2.jpg
3.jpg
4.jpg
5.jpg


I am about 5 cm short in space to be able to leave the waeco near the alex all the time, even when making up the bed. I think I'll be able to make up for that by cutting a piece from the bottom right corner near the side wall of Alex .. so that it better matches the cali shape. Then I can move Alex closer to the seat. Just an idea at the moment.. I also think I can live with moving the Waeco below the bench.
 
WOW. Thanks. So that's what's expecting me…we're five too…
Can you give me details about Alex selfmade pod? How is it fixed in the ground? Water etc.
Thanks


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk
 
See here
https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/beach-kitchen-and-storage-pods.6031/page-4#post-89689
and here
https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/cali-beach-kitchen-cooker-pod-options.11811/#post-125205
little modifications, basically, some shorter drawers, no bottom in the last drawer, and magnet closings.

I might change to different water bottles that fit a bit better some day.
The fittings are those from california camping but use the official VW rail mount clamps similar to those in the multiflex board fixing - they're better and easier to mount/unmount. Part numbers on this forum if you search for it you'll find it.

If I were to make the alex pod again I would opt for a sink one size larger and buy different size of water containers.
 
zeratul said:
Here's my current setup, Ikea Alex on the right, waeco to the left of it. It can be opened, even when the table is up. What I don't like yet is that when making the bed I have to move the Waeco. One possible place is on top of Alex, another is behind the other seat (but I'd rather keep that space for Porta Potti), or yet another is behind the multiflex board, below the flat folded seat (a bit hard to put it there and hard to lift it out, but it does fit nicely and uses lost space effectively).

1.jpg

2.jpg
3.jpg
4.jpg
5.jpg


I am about 5 cm short in space to be able to leave the waeco near the alex all the time, even when making up the bed. I think I'll be able to make up for that by cutting a piece from the bottom right corner near the side wall of Alex .. so that it better matches the cali shape. Then I can move Alex closer to the seat. Just an idea at the moment.. I also think I can live with moving the Waeco below the bench.
Click to expand...
How do you keep the Alex drawers from swinging open ? - do they lock in place ? thnaks
 
zeratul said:
See here
https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/beach-kitchen-and-storage-pods.6031/page-4#post-89689
and here
https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/cali-beach-kitchen-cooker-pod-options.11811/#post-125205
little modifications, basically, some shorter drawers, no bottom in the last drawer, and magnet closings.

I might change to different water bottles that fit a bit better some day.
The fittings are those from california camping but use the official VW rail mount clamps similar to those in the multiflex board fixing - they're better and easier to mount/unmount. Part numbers on this forum if you search for it you'll find it.

If I were to make the alex pod again I would opt for a sink one size larger and buy different size of water containers.
Click to expand...
Great solution.
I'm thinking about it…but i'm not so confident with DIY. need tools and kmowledge…
A little tutorial should be perfect.
Ps. Ikea in italy seems to sell only White Alex. Is it possible, or am I wrong?
 
We are big fans of compressor coolboxes as a fresh food cooling solution. Lets face it they are not cheap but they are brilliant at what they do. We took a long time deciding which brand to throw our lot in with.... Weaco, Engel or webasto. In the end we opted to go for Webasto, all three make great products however not many people know of engel and the dealer network is pretty limited, Weaco are owned by Dometic who generally choose to distribute their products through huge 3rd party distributors which creats unnessacerry links in the aftersales and return chain meaning returns and warranty claims are slow and lumpy. Webasto on the other hand have a hughe network of installers and dealers worldwide who deal direct with them meaning aftersales and warranty is slick and efficient.

here is there page if you fancy a little look.

http://www.webasto.com/int/markets-...lutions/refrigeration-solutions/travel-boxes/
 
That middle box looks identical to my Waeco too


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
We are 5 and have the next size down waeco and can fit it on the floor next to reimo pantry pod & still have space for porta potti....just.

I did post a pic ages ago of the waeco fridges next to each other in a store & when we tried them for size in the beach to help anyone buying online. I'll try & find the link later.

It's not ideal but we like to shop fresh & local where possible when on holiday & small enough to keep in the boot day to day with a few essentials in for the odd emergency jam sandwich!
 
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