extra cooling on domestic refrigerator

[ditchcrawler]

Firstly, I am not a refrigeration engineer but I would like to improve the efficiency of a LEC domestic refrigerator. This is an A rated unit which I have on a Narrowboat and I am trying to cut down on the amount of electricity it uses as it all comes from my battery bank.
I was intending to improve the insulation by adding 25mm of expanded polystyrene to the sides and top of the cabinet. In addition to this I was planning to blow cool air from the boat bilges over the condenser at the back of the unit.
Do you think I would achieve any savings by doing this?

regards Brian on NB Harnser

[Peter_1]

It won't help because at LEC, a company with a name, they designed it already with the greatest efficiency and blowing wind from the bilges over the condenser will perhaps make that the unit will run outside the design conditions (too low condensing pressure)
By the way, is the air from the bilges not too salty?
Arent' the battery charged while engine is running?

[botrous]

As Peter said , blowing air threw the condenser may cause too low condensing pressure (mostly out of the design) .
Question , is it an absorption or compression cycle ?
If it's an absorption you can manage it to work with propane or butane combustion . . . send the specifications of the system and we will see how we can help

[ditchcrawler]

) .
Question , is it an absorption or compression cycle ?

Comression

[chemi-cool]

In that case, the only solution, is getting an absorption unit and your problems are over.

In a second thought, why not use one of those mini-bars.
They have a compressor 1/12 HP.
Also less weight on the boat

Good luck any way you decide.

Chemi

[botrous]

The best way is to get an absorption mini bar , it's more effective and can work with heat source , maybe if you have good techncian they can make you the system work with heat from the yacht engine , and it's silent .... no noise in the yacht room

[ditchcrawler]

It won't help because at LEC, a company with a name, they designed it already with the greatest efficiency and blowing wind from the bilges over the condenser will perhaps make that the unit will run outside the design conditions (too low condensing pressure)
By the way, is the air from the bilges not too salty?
Arent' the battery charged while engine is running?

Thanks for that, No the boat has dry bilges on fresh water so the air would be clean.
Yes the batteries do charge from the engine but sometimes we are moored up for a couple of days. The fridge uses about 36 ah per day at 24 volts DC via a 240 VAC Inverter. That is about a quater of the battery capacity.
Brian