Trailer appliance opinions Please

[elmo_4_vt]

Hey,
I've been looking recently at sinks, stove and fridges for my trailer. I think I want a stove that's built in, but can't find the BTU for many of them.

I was looking at this combo deal on Ebay, it's a little expensive, but looks exactly like what I want, and it will fit really well with my setup. This will solve the sink and stove. There have also been some cheaper ones with the same burner setup, so I may try waiting a little longer to see if something cheaper comes up. For some back up info, I'll be using a single 20lb tank for my trailer and will be mounting all on a slide out kitchen area that's about 41" long.

Do you think this stove would be as good as a normal to higher quality portable cook stove? I already have a Colman gas stove for something portable if I need it, but I wanted something better, with more BTU. It seems silly to buy another portable unit when it will always be in this position.

For a fridge, I was going to buy a cheaper 12V unit that I've seen on here, but I have this unit left over from my last construction site, so it's free, and was wondering if it would work. It's only 120V AC, but I'll have an inverter on the trailer. It uses a nominal load of 70W so it's pretty low power. I know it's not the best option, but the price is right. Do you think this would run while moving? I was thinking I would just use this until it died, then move up, but would it even be worth trying? There are a bunch of other things on the priority list before a fridge.

Thanks for any opinions / thoughts.

Don

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[ExpoMike]

Those look sweet. Sounds like they have a great following in UK and AUS. Checking the Ebay vendor, they look like a prime distributor of the products in the US and the two burner (without the sink in your link) might be exactly what I am looking for. The only thing that concerns me a little is the glass lid. Bouncing around, don't know how well it would hold up but it looks easy enough to replace with a piece of aluminum.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

I like the look of those units, might have done something similar myself if I'd seen them. I ended up getting a small sink from Home Depot. Found one without holes for a faucet or anything. The extra depth is also nice.

I've also wondered if those fridges would work out. Not even because the price, but because a vertical door would work better for my setup. The 70W is a bit high. That means about 6amps on 12V. Not to mention, the inverter would consumer some power as well. One thing I was wondering, is that these coolers probably don't really run on AC power. I bet the rectify it to DC. I'm wondering what that voltage is, and if one could modify them to work off 12VDC and skip the AC conversion.

 

[elmo_4_vt]

I'm not sure about the fridge.... I remember seeing a pretty cool circuit diagram on the back of it, I'll go take a look and see if i can get some more info to post up.

I went ahead and purchased the stove and sink. I figured that I can always upgrade with different burner down the road if I really need to.

Don

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[Arya Ebrahimi]

Don, I've thought about salvaging the guts of a mini-fridge and then doing up one of the cabinets on my trailer as a normal style fridge. Basically just insulating the walls sufficiently and incorporating the compressor etc into the cabinet. Would be convenient as all get out, but it would require a bit of work.

 

[Doug2000]

Keep it simple

Hi

When I built my trailer, I had only one thing in mind, keep it simple. I had a tent trailer with all the bells and whistles, AC, oven stove, potty, everything and was always tinkering with something. That's why I sold it.
The trailer I built had to be simple. No working mechanical parts. I bought a 150 qt marine cooler from cabela's, holds lots of beer, and lots of food. It held a block of ice for 5 days, which was the day we introduced new warmer groceries to it. A big cooler is the way to go, nothing to fix, hard to steel.

Doug

 

[elmo_4_vt]

Keep it simple...

Doug

Thanks... Your probably right. I still think a 12V fridge would be nice sometime down the road, but this would be too much work to make it worth-while. I'll stick with my big cooler as well. It's really only on extended trips when the fridge would come in handy.

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