As temperatures soar during a heat wave, keeping your portable fridge ice-cold gets a little trickier, with your fridge having to work harder than ever to keep the temperature down. In this article, we’ll explore practical tips and tricks to ensure your portable fridge remains ice-cold in the sweltering heat.
Helping your fridge run ice-cold starts in your driveway
Start your trip off right by plugging your portable fridge into 240v power (mains power) and getting it to the perfect temperature at least 24 hours before you leave. If you were only to turn your fridge on and fill it up with warm drinks and food the morning you go camping, relying on your car or a second battery to get it to the correct temperature, your fridge will be working hard from the get-go. It will need to run all of the first night and possibly the next morning to get it down to temperature, running a very real risk of flattening your battery and then having no working fridge at all.
However, if you pre-chill the fridge so it’s ready to go on the day from mains power, you can leave with an already cold fridge and a full battery.
Pack with thought
Just like your home fridge, the more you open the fridge door and leave it open while you rummage around in there, the more chance of all that nice cold leaking out. The problem with your portable fridge is that you’re usually relying on a battery to power it, so the less your fridge has to work, the longer the battery powering it will last. This means you need to put a little thought into your packing to minimise how long the fridge stays open when you get something out. Put all the things you want to keep really cold and don’t need often in the bottom and the things you want to chill and use more often at the top, like cheese and butter for sandwiches.
If it’s really hot and the family keeps going to the fridge every 15 minutes to get a drink out, consider using an old-fashioned esky with ice just for drinks for a day or two. I know this seems counter-productive as to why you bought a portable fridge in the first place, but it ensures your food doesn’t spoil in a heatwave when the lid keeps getting opened, and your water, kids’ drinks, soft drinks and beer stay cold in the icebox.
Another tip is if you’re storing water bottles in your portable fridge, freeze them in your house freezer prior to leaving. Those frozen water bottles will help keep your fridge cold, ensuring it doesn’t have to work as hard, and you’ll have an extra icy drink when you do reach for it.
Re-visit your low-voltage cut-out feature
Nearly all modern portable fridges have a lot-voltage cut-out feature. What this does is sense how much voltage is left in your battery and turn the fridge off if the battery gets too low. While this is usually a good fail-safe, obviously, it’s also inconvenient when your fridge switches itself off in the middle of a heat wave. Adjust the low voltage cut out to its lowest level if you can.
Ensure your fridge can breathe
A portable fridge will never run as efficiently as possible if the vents at the back of the fridge are blocked and not allowed to do their job. It’s pretty easy to accidentally block them, especially if your fridge is in the back of your 4WD and it’s loaded up to the gills. So make sure to give your fridge a bit of breathing space. A fridge cage can help you out with this.
Make sure your leads are up to scratch
If your fridge lead has seen better days, you could be experiencing a voltage drop between your battery and your portable fridge. This is quite a common problem. Your battery can show that it’s sufficiently charged, yet the battery sensor on the fridge reads low voltage and switches off. If this voltage drop is due to a faulty lead, you can simply replace it with a heavier-duty one.
One way to look after your lead is to get yourself a cable saver. This simple little device keeps your fridge lead up and out of the way of your fridge slide, ensuring it doesn’t get damaged in the runners.
Shield your fridge from heat and direct sunlight
It’s a no-brainer that a fridge in direct sunlight or locked up in a sweltering car will have to work harder than one that is comfortable sitting in the shade. This is where a fridge cover can help by providing additional insulation and therefore, improving energy efficiency. As an added bonus, a cover will also protect your fridge from bumps and scratches.
Read how I got an extra day and a half out of my Engel fridge blow by simply adding a fridge cover below.
If your portable fridge lives in the back of your 4WD, sun shields on the back windows will also go a long way to blocking the direct sunlight.
Plug your solar in as soon as you get to camp
It is a heck of a lot easier to keep your battery topped up than it is to charge a flat one when you’re camping, so make sure to plug your solar in as soon as you get to camp. This will go a long way to ensuring your battery can continue to power your portable fridge when the mercury rises.
All these tips will help keep your fridge cool in a heatwave, but the most obvious tip is to ensure you have a quality fridge to start with. Engel’s Sawafuji Swing Motor lives up to the hype of being a legend in reliability. With only one moving part, friction loss is very low in an Engel, resulting in a highly efficient compressor that will keep running on as low as 10 volts.
