Thread: Fridge size

I've used a 40L Engel for 20 years weekend camping (and for longer trips) with a family of 5.

Thanks Ian, i thought it would be ok going from a 3way finch which is about 35ltrs to a 45ltr proper fridge. The 60ltr comes out to the same price without extra's but next stock is due in a month.

Yep, I've got a 39 litre Engel and I can do a weekend with our family - the kids are grown now, so 4 adults without issue.

Keep the food you need in it, and put in new drinks each morning - if you have a solar panel, that will do all the hard work cooling them down before your ready to drink them in the evening.

In reality, we only keep meat, milk and beer in it - plenty of room.

If you want to save room, vac pack your meat, then you will find you have heaps left for the beer...

I suppose it depends on what you do with your fridge. We've just (finally) purchased a 92l dual zone fridge/freezer, and used it a couple of time - once for a 4-day trip to our property, and then on a 3-day camping trip. Both times the fridge section (53l) was kept pretty full. The 39l freezer compartment was half-full at the start with frozen meat that was used over the trips, as well as our staple frozen veg that gets cooked with any meal that doesn't have salad.

I'm sure we could have not had the fridge section as full, but when you have the space, you put in an extra drink bottle or two for the kids. We also like a good deal of fresh salad, so that takes up a lot of room.

I'm sure if we only had a 40l fridge, we would make do. But there's no way, after using the 92l, that we would ever go backwards.

Currently a family of 2 adults and 3 kids.

No matter what size you get, you will fill it and wonder how you could manage with anything smaller.

You may be familiar with Parkinson's law which states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion".

A little known, but equally valid corollary is that the food taken on camping trips expands to fill all the available space in the fridge.

Last time I did a six week trip to Darwin with two adults and two children and when we did a trip up the Oodnadatta Track, the Tanami and the Gibb River Road with two adults, we had a 15 litre Engel and we never felt the need for anything bigger. I even fitted all the fillets from a 71cm Barramundi in with the other food.

It is just a case of knowing how much space you have available and working around it.

You can put all the cans of beer and soft drink for the weekend in the fridge at the start of the trip and fill a 60 litre fridge or you can just put enough cans in as they are needed and manage with a 15 litres fridge.

Everyone will tell you that the size they have is the minimum or the perfect size, no matter whether they have a 40 litre or a 90 litre.

You don't have to try very hard to be able to manage quite well with a 45 litre fridge. You also may need to consider the space taken up by the fridge in the back of the vehicle. I once saw two people travelling in a Disco with a fridge so big that it took up almost all the available storage behind the back seats, so they had almost all their camping gear in a box trailer behind. With a smaller fridge, they might have been able to leave the trailer behind.

Not wanting to disagree with Allan but I for one would rather a smaller fridge.

We have a 60 litre Evakool and to be frank I would prefer a 40 litre one for most camping trips.

Evakool always have a specials page on their website and they often have some good buys, here it is .... Hot Specials

I will amend my statement in my previous post.

Almost everyone becomes accustomed to using the amount of space they have available so that they imagine that is the only size they could work with.

If they have 60 or 90 litres available, they just become used to filling it and never really need to give serious thought to how they might manage with less space.

A small number of people are prepared to consider other approaches and other possibilities.

Space is the issue as i want it to fit lengthwise in the disco over to the left , i was looking at a dual zone but again they are big and heavy.

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