any sunfrost users here?

[dvellone]

Any off grid folks (or otherwise) here using a sunfrost fridge (dc unit)? What are your opinions; electrical usage, reliability, etc.

 

[charly]

Dvellone
We have a ac unit, Sunfrost, Fridge upper ,freezer lower. Going on 7 years old and zero problems. Also have a Staber washing machine, 15 gallons of water, no more than 1 ounce of soap. Half ounce is better. Belt drive from motor , variable speed, no transmission, and greaseable bearings on the wash tub. Top load, but spins like a front loader. Stuff comes out almost dry. Low power use too. Zero problems, and low soap cost. Happy with both. Our power bill is never over 120 dollars for a month. Hope this helps. All came from Lehmans .

 

[dvellone]

Dvellone
We have a ac unit, Sunfrost, Fridge upper ,freezer lower. Going on 7 years old and zero problems. Also have a Staber washing machine, 15 gallons of water, no more than 1 ounce of soap. Half ounce is better. Belt drive from motor , variable speed, no transmission, and greaseable bearings on the wash tub. Top load, but spins like a front loader. Stuff comes out almost dry. Low power use too. Zero problems, and low soap cost. Happy with both. Our power bill is never over 120 dollars for a month. Hope this helps. All came from Lehmans .

Thanks for the info... coincidentally, the staber is my second large appliance need. Being off grid the low water use is appealing. I've heard great things about them.
Concerning the sunfrost, they're expensive but I've been told by my local dealer that they are a "lifetime refrigerator" and that a replacement compressor is very affordable.

 

[charly]

I hot glued clothes pins to the back of the lower storage cabinet on the bottom of the Sunfrost. They hold the plastic drip tubes without crushing them, perfect. Then I just have a pan underneath so any condensation, drips into that. The first time you wash your clothes in the Staber they tell you to do so with no soap, it will get the old soap out of your existing clothes. Next time around you use soap. Otherwise you will get an over soap condition. We use OURS brand soap. A gallon of soap lasts almost a year it seems. The woman at Staber says she never uses over a half ounce. Holds like 18 lbs. of laundry or 15 towels. Agitates and then spins at like 850 rpm on the rinse. All end user friendly to service. Real cut & dry. 2 good products.

 

[peakbagger]

Home power has had a few articles about Sunfrosts over the years. One of them was about storage alternatives inside that didnt screw up the efficiency of the unit. I have seen recent discussions that the economics are getting to the point where it better to buy a standard Energy Star refrigerator for far less and use the savings for more panels

I have a Staber and it is an impressive rig, I dont see how they can stay in business as barring a direct lightning strike or the house burning down, I dont see anyone ever needing to buy another one. A bummer is that for some reason, most of the unitlity rebates wont apply to a Staber. I dont know why except maybe its too expensive for Staber to get the energy star certification?

 

[charly]

I was at one time going to see if I could become a dealer for Staber and sell them locally. I don't think alot of people know about them. Once you pull the front cover off , it's hard to believe how simple they where built. It's like they got rid of all the headaches of a traditional washer. Nice to service , but I don't see alot of that ever being needed.

 

[dvellone]

Home power has had a few articles about Sunfrosts over the years. One of them was about storage alternatives inside that didnt screw up the efficiency of the unit. I have seen recent discussions that the economics are getting to the point where it better to buy a standard Energy Star refrigerator for far less and use the savings for more panels

I've heard that argument too and I'm not so sure about how that would work around here where we don't get an abundance of sunny days. I could put up 2x the array I'm using now and come november - february and those gray sunless days (which can persist for as long as 30 days), I'd be bringing in 4 amps instead of 2. Just not enough to support any ac fridge, and 6 new panels aren't cheap. I think that equation works much better in a sunny climate. I'm running a small energy star ac fridge now and it uses 3x the energy of the sunfrost rf16 dc model which has more cubic volume.