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philpom
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# Posted: 26 May 2026 06:18pm
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4 years ago I bought a regular fridge, a Maytag with a 10 year parts compressor warranty. I thought this should be great and if they put that on the compressor it must be a decent one. This past weekend we showed up to a dead fridge, it runs, can hear the coolant gurgling, blows air, condenser fan works, but no cold air.
I did a little reading and this thing is intended for 60f to 90f operation range, useless and probably what killed it, the cabin gets to 3 or 4f in winter when we aren't there and 120 or hotter inside when we are not there.
Thought about getting a garage ready model, I have one in the garage now that is a decade old and it keeps the meat frozen and the beer icy, no problem. Before I do that, I thought I would ask here, someone has got to have some good experience and advice. What is it? Nothing worse that ruined food and no fridge for a long weekend!
Thanks in advance.
Mark
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 26 May 2026 07:25pm
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When my dad had a spare house fridge in the garage he didn't run it in the winter, no need, everything stayed cold even through the occasional warmer days (if nobody was getting in and out of it a bunch). That thing ran for 25yr and was used when he got it. Actually it was still running at the estate sale but some scrapper bought it.
As for cabin, we have a Lifetime brand kinda Yeti clone ice chest, longest run we had was 5 days and there was ice left when we had to go home.
Since ours is a non full-time cabin IF we had a fridge anything in it we would consider expendable....stuff always happens dontchaknow 
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rpe
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# Posted: 26 May 2026 07:39pm
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The fridge in our cabin sits empty and unplugged for most of the winter, where ambient temperatures drop well below zero F. When we go up for winter visit, the wood stove heats things up pretty quickly, so we plug it back in, and it works fine. I can check the make/model next time I'm up. I doubt it's anything special, as the previous owners never came up during winter months.
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Fanman
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# Posted: 26 May 2026 08:48pm - Edited by: Fanman
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Quoting: philpom I did a little reading and this thing is intended for 60f to 90f operation range, useless and probably what killed it, the cabin gets to 3 or 4f in winter when we aren't there and 120 or hotter inside when we are not there. Thought about getting a garage ready model...
If you need to leave it running, that's what you want. We have a standard fridge in our cabin, but we unplug it when we leave in October. On the occasional winter weekends we just leave the food in the coolers we brought it in, the fridge never gets plugged in until April or May.
Though we did just replace it; we got a new fridge for the house and the old house fridge was newer and better than the old old fridge in the cabin. Getting it from the truck to the cabin (about 50 yards of trail) and the old one out was interesting. Then the old one went to the staff cabin at the kid's camp our daughter and son in law work at; instead of driving 2 miles or so on the paved road I took the woods road which is only a half mile.
Here we're getting ready to carry the old one up those stairs.
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DRP
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# Posted: 26 May 2026 09:10pm - Edited by: DRP
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A client helped raise its namesake, so he had to have it when he saw it. It lives in the man barn, is unrestored, a century old, an energy hog, and it still runs.
I salvaged the logs from an old saddlebag cabin years ago. There was the predecessor to the Monitor in there, an icy ball fridge, I think that was the 1st commercial model.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icyball
I also found a set of trace chains with the US stamp and some other cool old stuff on that one. My wife made me bring the chimney home  .
I don't leave anything important in our barn fridge during the winter. It's pretty sketchy in deep cold. I have left ice cubes in a bowl in the freezer as a telltale if it thawed.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 26 May 2026 09:26pm
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I guess for cost effectiveness Id likely go with another 'inexpensive one' and not run it in winter. Its a lot easier for me to swallow the replacement costs like that rather than pay Huge money up front for something that may not last any longer (Ive been burned too many times  )
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philpom
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# Posted: 26 May 2026 09:39pm
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Thanks for the replies so far. Some solid info in there. For better or worse we like leaving a few things up there.
I have an old propane fridge in the barn, it needs some work but those I've read do extremely well is very cold Temps. It's not big enough for regular use by my crew. My best research tells me to get a garage rated model tested to 0°f and then run a milk house heater on anti-freeze mode through the winter in proximity. That's probably what I'll do, for this situation I'm not interested in a chest freezer conversion for example.
Make and model is the real question I guess. Wr do the usual stuff like a gallon jug of water to keep things cold during a day long power outage and ice in a bowl for indications of thaw.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 27 May 2026 10:15am
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Ice cubes in a bowl, if they are no longer cubes.....drink the water
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rpe
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# Posted: 27 May 2026 11:05am
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Quoting: gcrank1 Ice cubes in a bowl, if they are no longer cubes.....drink the water
Put a dime on top of the ice cube in the tray. If you find it frozen at the bottom, you know the freezer thawed at some point in between!
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gcrank1
Member
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# Posted: 27 May 2026 11:18am
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If you use a copper penny it will release ions that will help mitigate algae growth too.
LOL
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rpe
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# Posted: 28 May 2026 07:46am
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Quoting: gcrank1 If you use a copper penny it will release ions that will help mitigate algae growth too.
Good idea, but I'm in Canada. We no longer have the penny once we figured out it cost us 1.6 cents to make one! Not sure why I skipped the nickel and went straight to the dime in my example though!
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FishHog
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# Posted: 28 May 2026 08:15am
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Quoting: rpe Good idea, but I'm in Canada. We no longer have the penny once we figured out it cost us 1.6 cents to make one! Not sure why I skipped the nickel and went straight to the dime in my example though!
too rich for my blood
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 28 May 2026 10:49am
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Guess I spaced out the original post part about 'bought 4 yrs ago with a 10yr warrantee'; get them to replace or fix it!
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philpom
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# Posted: 1 Jun 2026 06:33pm
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Quoting: gcrank1 Guess I spaced out the original post part about 'bought 4 yrs ago with a 10yr warrantee'; get them to replace or fix it!
Yeah, it's a logistics nightmare to get someone out there if at all and warranty is parts only plus we'll likely face another failure down the road. I still might bring it home and see what I can figure out. We'll see but for now I'll get a garage ready fridge tested to 0f plus a milk house heater on freeze guard near it.
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DRP
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# Posted: 4 Jun 2026 08:58pm
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A year or so ago I helped our weekend neighbor haul a very cute, quite expensive little imported fridge out for the scrapper's, no one to service it here or there.
Depending on location... a month or so ago I had the dishwasher the client had purchased installed. It failed to run, the plumber said to call Lowes, he didn't want to void the warranty. I called it in and asked for them to send a technician. "Our old tech retired, we don't have an agreement with anyone locally". Well, let's swap out another unit. "Nope, we can't do that, he didn't buy the extended warranty". So he's SOL. "Yes sir".
We also have a local small family appliance company that is more expensive, is struggling because of the big boxes... and would have sent a guy out the next day. They aren't interested in servicing the competitor's stuff. Just one more way to think about it.
Relative to nothing, but they were neat tech.
This is a good short video on the icy ball fridge from the 30's. I did see one where a guy was playing with a parabolic reflector as the burner with an icy ball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA6UBKi13BY
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 5 Jun 2026 09:58am
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I tried one of those 'plate' cooling/heating fancy ice chests operating on 12vdc (I guess it is just a small heat exchanging principle?), the fall or rise in temp from ambient never came close to the claims so it became just another poorly built ice chest. Wonder how one on a better built 'Yeti type' with a larger plate would do?
Our small Heier dorm size fridge works fine off 120vac but for off grid was too much a draw off 12v bats and inverter overhead. Opening the door lets the cold dump out, a chest type would be more efficient I think.
At last trials I did find that I could unplug the Heier for overnight as no one was getting in it held the cold (tested with a thermometer) nicely until morning when the solar could help keep up. Of course with grid power it wouldnt matter and even with short power outages a fridge will keep cold if you aren't getting into it frequently, chest freezers even more so.
I continue to think that an inexpensive fridge run 'smart for the seasons' is the way to go.
ymmv
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travellerw
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# Posted: 5 Jun 2026 10:43am
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We bought an upright freezer from Costco 4 years ago. I converted it to a fridge using an inkbird. It sits in the cabin unplugged with temps dipping to -40. In the winter we don't bother plugging it in, instead we have freeze packs in it. When we arrive we just put the food in there with the freeze packs. 4 days is no problem.
We start it back up in March or April depending on how hot it is. So far, no issues.
P.S. You don't even have to bother with the inkbird conversion now as the updated model has a "fridge" mode.
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philpom
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# Posted: 8 Jun 2026 06:26pm
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Quoting: travellerw We bought an upright freezer from Costco 4 years ago. I converted it to a fridge using an inkbird.
A chest freezer converted to a fridge using a pid is a very effective solution for solar. It really needs to be a on a pid, not a dual fridge/freezer model because you want it powered 100% off between cycles.
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