I WAS recently in the market for a portable fridge/freezer unit to take on a camping holiday with my family. We have an offroad camper trailer, and decided that a 3-way fridge/freezer was going to suit our camping needs, as we don’t have solar panels.
Once we started looking for 3-way units though, we soon found that they aren’t a common item these days. After doing considerable research, we decided that the Dometic RC1180 was going to be the best unit to accommodate our needs.
The unit comprises of a 30L fridge and 16L freezer with a removable divider. We ran our unit on gas for the majority of time we were away, and noted exceptionale conomy. The unit uses a maximum of 450g gas per day, but consistently ran well below this. We got around 30 nights of use from our single gas bottle. It is a bit energy-thirsty when running on mains or 12V power though.
The unit weighs 25kg, so when it’s full of food and drinks it is a bit weighty. The unit ran non-stop for two months while we were on the road and never missed a beat. It would freeze meat and fish fillets as quickly as a domestic household freezer, and we only had the thermostat set at around 60 per cent, so there was a lot more cooling power in reserve. The unit was super-quiet while operating, and emitted no overpowering fumes.
The fridge has a moulded plastic outer casing with no sharp edges which was good for us as we have three little kids. We paid around $1200 for our Dometic, and so far it has been a fantastic unit.
For more info on Dometic fridge freezers go to:
http://www.waeco.com.au/products4.asp?id=415&catId=57&subCatId=59&subCatId2=67
