Get the Best From Your Camping Fridge

12v camping fridges and freezers are often a camp site staple these days, but how do you get the best efficiency from them?

Ensuring food is safe and cold throughout the duration of your camping trip is essential, especially if you plan on heading off the grid. Spills, container breakages and cross contamination are bad enough, but even worse is either your food going bad due to refrigeration issues or draining your battery pack sooner than expected.

Using leak-proof, non-breakable containers is a great place to start, as is removing any bulky excess packaging. There are a few other tips to assist with setup, performance and maintaining internal temperature when you’re out and about:

1 Pre-chill Your Fridge

Before you pack up, plug your camping fridge in and make sure it’s nice and cold before you hit the road. Using mains power at home will allow you to take advantage of any turbo cooling mode your particular fridge may have. You may want to consider pre-chilling to a couple of degrees below your desired temperature setting, just to make sure you have a head start before your journey (just remember to change temperature and power consumption modes back before you leave).

2 Pre-chill Food and Drinks

If you’re pre-chilling your camping fridge, you’re going to lose all advantage by packing it full of supplies that aren’t cold. Make sure that all your food and drink is properly cold before it goes in the fridge. If you’ve got some meals that you don’t plan on eating for the first couple of days, you might want to consider freezing them to pack at the bottom of your fridge.

3 Pack Smart

Organize your camping fridge according to the frequency of item use. Items you’ll reach for more often should be at the top or in easy-to-access compartments, whilst those frozen meals for later in your trip are perfect at the bottom. This minimizes the time the lid stays open and maintains a consistent temperature. Packing your fridge as full as sensibly possible will also help with efficiency rather than keeping empty air chilled.

4 Be Smart With the Sun

Leaving your camping fridge in the sun isn’t a good idea. Sounds obvious, but it’s worth remembering. Direct sunshine will warm your fridge quickly, so your compressor will have to work harder to maintain the internal temperature of the fridge and you’ll use more power. If you’re in an area with particularly strong morning and afternoon sun, then it pays to be aware of how the shade shifts over the day. Leaving your fridge in a very hot vehicle will also have a similar effect – park wisely.

5 Give it Some Space

Be aware of where your fridge’s vents are and don’t pack things close against them. Your fridge needs good air circulation to efficiently and effectively lose the heat from the compressor. When cleaning your fridge, make sure that any vents aren’t blocked or obstructed by dust and debris (keep your seals nice and clean whilst you’re busy, too).

6 Consider a Cover

If your fridge model has an optional insulated cover, it’s well worth considering. Not only will it protect the body of the fridge from knocks and scrapes, the extra insulation will give your efficiency a boost too. Remember to make sure it doesn’t cover or slip over any air vents, though.

7 Don’t Overdo It

Don’t waste power you don’t have to and set your fridge to an appropriate temperature for the contents. For most foods and drinks, 3°C to 5°C is ideal.

©CAMPCRAFT