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Topic: Electric Cool box Recommendations

Granlands

08/8/2013 at 11:14am
Location: Yorkshire
Outfit: Gelert Corvus 5+2

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Hi

We are going for a weeks camping in a few weeks and I am looking for an electric coolbox. I have a bog standard one but we end up having to change the ice blocks twice a day to keep everything cool, which is a bit of a pain.
We do not have much spare room, so a fridge is out of the question, so I am looking towards a 24l electric coolbox. I did buy a second hand outwell once, but am not sure if it was working as it did not perform any better than a normal one than a non-electric one.
I have been looking at campingaz ones - does anyone have any experience with these or similar ?

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Francais

08/8/2013 at 12:13pm
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Yep, we have one of the Aldi electric cool box's that can run of 12v or 240v mains.

On the whole it serves it's purpose, Lidless do a similar unit both around £30.

Of course these type of cool box's are Thermeoelectric so at best they are only going to cool to 20DegC below the ambient temperature.

Also these type of cool box's need to be running all the time, so can be annoying at nighttime with the constant noise from the fan.

For something that works just like a normal fridge, and at just 24lt, you need to be thinking about a compressor camping fridge.

We have a little Waeco CoolFreeze CF25 which is just 23lt, and is a fantastic unit, got it back in 2008 and it is still just as good as new.

The Waeco CF25 comes with us on our fortnight campings to the South of France in July, when temps can be pushing +40DegC and it has performed perfectly.

We don't bother taking the Aldi cooler to France, although it is fine for UK use.

Trekkin Tekkie

08/8/2013 at 12:17pm
Location: None Entered
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We used to have one from Halfords which we were very happy with and it got heavy use for 10 years. Unfortunately it's not sold any more.

We replaced it with the Aldi one. This seems to get slightly colder and has the advantage of powering directly from mains or from the car without the need for a separate transformer. It is noisy though so most nights I'm inclined to switch it off.

Consider the shape - a deeper one with a smaller footprint might be able to fit taller bottles in, but also you'll have to empty it if you want to reach a small item that's fallen to the bottom...

Also where the fan is can affect how easy it is to pack round if you're using in the car.

TT

sheffieldblue

08/8/2013 at 12:26pm
Location: Sheffield
Outfit: Elddis Hurricane EX2000

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Hi, we purchased an Outwell cool box and we were very disappointed at the level of performance to the point that we thought it was faulty, we took it back to Go Outdoors who as usual were very helpful and gave us an exchange without any quibble. Having given some thought to the situation and taking on board the comments of the sales assistant that “they do not work like a fridge and will not chill food” or in our case and more importantly beer! We decided to buy a mini fridge for £63 + VAT from Makro and while it takes up a little more room than the cool box it works fantastically well, keeping stuff very cold even during extreme warm weather we have had in recent months.
Gary

morepints

08/8/2013 at 2:22pm
Location: Dartford Kent
Outfit: VW T6 conversion

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If I were buying now, I'd get one of these:

.
If you want ice for the G&T, you'll need a fridge.

sheffieldblue

08/8/2013 at 5:43pm
Location: Sheffield
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This is the exact cooler we bought and for £70 it did not do the biz for us, the spec reckoned to cool stuff to 18 degrees below the ambient temperature which basically didn’t happen, very disappointing given the price and reputation of Outwell.

Gary

morepints

08/8/2013 at 7:24pm
Location: Dartford Kent
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If I were buying, I wouldn't get one of those, after what Gary said!

We've got the older Outwell and it works fine, if with a bit of a hum:

- even in Languedoc last Sept in 30+ deg.

girlwomble

09/8/2013 at 1:07pm
Location: Glasgow
Outfit: sometimes a tent. So

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We've got the older outwell one in bright green and I think it's wonderful. Runs in the car down using the ciggy lighter and on electric on site. Been running it for about 5 or so years and its still going well.
Folks have a cheap one from go outdoors and its not so good. Especially as the lead is perminantly attached.

Aldi and Lidl ones get good write ups too.

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dk168

09/8/2013 at 1:26pm
Location: Devizes Wiltshire
Outfit: MWB VW Crafter PVC

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I have two 28L thermo-electric cool box of similar design, one made by Coleman and the other Campingaz, and both worked fine in this county normally, because they can only cool their contents down to 18 deg C below the ambient temperature.

They will struggle to keep their contents below 8 deg C if it is very hot, like the very hot spell we had in mid July this year.

I would supplement cooling by using ice packs if it is that hot again, which was what I had to do in July.

The noise they produce do not bother me as I wear earplugs to bed, and have a fan heater that goes on and off in the inner tent throughout the night when the temperature is low.

DK

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BadToTheBone

09/8/2013 at 9:55pm
Location: Hampshire
Outfit: Hi Gear Voyager 6

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Quote: Originally posted by morepints on 08/8/2013If I were buying now, I'd get one of these:
.
If you want ice for the G&T, you'll need a fridge.

I am interested in that after checking out the features a few days ago.

Does anyone know from real experience if the 12/230v version really cools 18-25 below ambient? That seems to be quite a bit better than the competition (well at -25).

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Klikchik

10/8/2013 at 6:52am
Location: Moray Scotland
Outfit: Vango Tigeris XL 2013

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Hi there

After several failed coolboxes that are just not up to the job, we have a Waeco CF 25 compressor fridge. Great slim size, very quiet and holds a surprising amount. Most important of all, no hassle with cool blocks and keeps everything very cold no matter how hot it is outside.

They have very low power consumption (we wild camped with it for 3 days on a leisure battery) and can also be switched to freezing facility which is great for taking stuff home from the supermarket.

A pricey option but if we added together how many poor cool boxes we've gone through, we should have got one of these in the first place!

Francais

10/8/2013 at 9:02am
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Hi Klikchic.
We got our Waeco CoolFreeze CF25 back in 2008, and has been brilliant, although I noticed they have dropped the Digital LED display from the CF25 on the new models, but the larger CF models still retain the LED display, I thought it was a bit cheeky of them to drop the LED Display feature just on the CF25.

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