Propane refrigerators

The servel brand name has been around for some time, and many people trust them.  They only have an 8 cubic foot model, so many people find them to be too small.  We have also had good luck with the Miller brand.  They offer larger sizes and I have not yet heard of any problems or returns on one since I have been around.  Call us up to get a shipping quote on either brand.  hope this helps,

james - Alt-E staff

Try looking at some mobile home or trailer part sales. Most of them have a propane fridge.

I've found that they are indeed quiet.  However, they tend to go through propane like Sherman went through Richmond....  My vote, get yerself an EnergyStar rated electric unit.  Quite low power usage, these days.  If yer hut is that isolated, do you wanna tote 100# propane cylendars (sp? that one always gets me... along with "solenoid"...) that far?? 

yeah, see, since I'm already generating the alt energy, I figgured it's more economical to just incorporate the fridge into the plan.  Not only that, but I've recently had several major failures to the propane units I HAD.  "Free fridge, anyone?  All you gotta do is pick the friggers UP!"  I've not had any problem with our electrical units "snapping", or making much noise at all.  I live in an eight sided house, 34' diameter, all open floor.  In fact, day before yesterday, we FINALLY got a nice break from the late season heat--my house is completely open as I type, at 11:23 at night (of course, the Somfy motorized screens are all down...!).  Man, is it NICE to hear the breeze, and the windchime down on the beach!!  As I said, our house is completely open floor plan; the kitchen is in one quadrant of the eight sides, there is a knee-high concrete wall that divides the house roughly in two, one side of the wall (with a glass shelving unit above it), is the couch, facing the pull-down tv screen (100 whopping inches diag. in a 1000 sq.' house!  not bad, but actually, there is NO ROOM or walls to put a conventional tv against!).  The other side of the wall/shelving unit (right behind the couch), is the bed, headboard towards the wall unit.  The unit is simply 8" bamboo, with 1/2" tempered glass for the shelves.  In the kitchen, I have a standard Kenmore 19 cu/' fridge/freezer.  Even when the ice maker is cycling, it's never kept me up, but I know all folks sleep differently.  When I said "EnergyStar", I meant just any ole' conventional unit from BestBuy or Circuit City or Sears.  They've gotten so efficient, it really beats the cost of propane (or, as I call it, "propain-in-the-arse"

What island you on?  We in Exumas, Bahamas, also about 12 miles from the nearest village/mailboat drop-off, from where our propane comes.  However, I am in the process of installing a fuel bunker (8000 gal. diesel, 4000 gal. gasoline, and 1000 gal. propane), but even then, I won't use it for fridges.  Some things propane does well (water heating, cooking), other things I leave to electricity (fridges, pumping, lighting), and still more I leave to "mr. stinky" (filling dive tanks, running the A/C, and, till I reasearch further a new device to improve the efficiency of the watermaker, squeezing salt water into fresh). 

jcc

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blrefrigerator.htm
I have lived off grid for over 30 years. Our first "cooler" was the creek beside our house. From there it was an old used Kelvinator LP that actually performed well for its age. There have been at least 4 others since then. All  Dometic or Servel and all used. As of 2 years ago its been an EZ Freeze and it has been reliable and very efficient so far. A couple of the things I wasn't very impressed with about the EZ Freeze are 1- the battery powered light. I wish they had just wired it contemporary so that I could make the choice of voltage and ac or dc. 2 - The only problem I have had with mine was the door dropped and it lost its absolute seal. The fix was simple. I made a disc out of a high density plastic, removed the door, placed the disc on the lower hinge and replaced the door.
There is one other thing but its not really a problem. I built the spot in my kitchen where the fridge goes so that its back side is isolated from the interior. Outside air moves up and across the back and exhausted up through the roof. This helps a lot in the summer time to keep heat out of the house and keep the fridge colder. But in the winter time if I don't close off the lower air vent, the fridge works to good!   
Here is a web store Lonnie that deals with alternative appliances.
http://www.warehouseappliance.com/
But you know Lonnie, one of the most basic fundamentals of any alternative is just that. Finding new alternatives. An alternative is not always best but there is almost always a better alternative. Its a matter of perspective really. One may have to give up one aspect in order to gain another. I relate this to gear ratios in rear axles of automobiles. Do I hang gas mileage go tall to get the launch or do I go short and get more mpgs. I guess in the case of refrigerators it would cubic foots and how much LP in a 24 hours day. I mean if I can get one fridge/freezer with 18 cubic foot and it burns the same amount of LP in 24 hours as one with 8 cubic foot, even though it costs the same as two of the smaller units, I am going for it 'cause there are four people in my household and the stores a long way away. Here are a few other alternatives in refrigeration. If your interested.
http://gas-refrigerators.com/
http://www.sundanzer.com/Home.html
http://www.limsi.fr/Individu/mpons/solaradsor.htm
Well, I could go on and on with the links.

Perhaps more important than the fuel you use is how much insulation your fridge has.  A typical residential refrigerator has maybe 1-2 inches of foam giving an R-value of between 5 and 12.  A chest freezer might be 3 inches for R-18.  You wouldn't accept that for the walls of your house, would you?  No wonder these units suck down energy, from whatever source.  Worse still, refrigerators are often sited right next to the oven!

My solution is to build an ultra-insulated walk-in refrigerator/freezer into my house with the walls insulated to about R-60 with an insulated exterior-rated door for access.  By eliminating the loss of coolth from within, very little energy will be needed to maintain the temperature.  And with less usage of the compressor (which gets vented to the outside), reliability will also be vastly improved.

This may not work for everyone, especially a small cabin.  However, if you could build a small addition (preferably to the north side), it may well be worth it.  Or a detached out-building.  Failing that, then modifying a commercially-available unit might be a good idea.  Glue a few inches of polyisocyanurate foam panels to the outside and either bury the back end into a wall to hide it or pretty it up with some wood paneling or sheet metal.  If you double the insulation of your fridge (and don't open and close it constantly), you can expect to possibly double its efficiency and reduce by half the amount of energy it uses.

Fair enough... that should probably be people's first stop.  But I cannot fathom only having enough room to store maybe 1-2 days worth of food.  I don't think making the cubic footage impossibly small is the best path to efficiency.  But that's probably the only choice for someone who has a kitchen with a designated amount of exterior space for a fridge and they don't intend to remodel.