Fridge - power interrupt. (1 Viewer)

[billkce]

Hello all from rainy Marbella,

:helptitanic:


We are at Cabopino & the site power keeps going on & off - sometimes 15 times per day. Sometimes restored immediately, sometimes a few minutes or longer.

What, if any, implications might this have for the fridge? One of our friends here has already suffered a failed fridge. Could the power fluctuations be the cause?

Cheers

Billkce:Sad:

 

[pappajohn]

compressor or absorption fridge ?

absorption fridge will probably be OK as its only a heating element.

not sure about a compresser fridge....rapidly kicking in and out cant do it much good in my opinion.

 

[Snowbird]

I had an American fridge go down on me a few years ago becouse of Spanish electricity.Spanish electric is notorious for voltage fluctuations and going on and off.Since then have always run my fridge on gas when on Spanish sites.

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[scotjimland]

I would agree with pappajohn... on both counts ..

and as snowbird says, Spanish mains is notorious for fluctuations and low voltage .. probably due to the large number of EHUs with an inadequate mains supply to the site. This could damage a compressor fridge .. but unlikely an absorption unit.

I also ran my fridge on LPG because it wasn't cooling very well on mains, when I checked the supply it was only about 200 Vac ..

Also worth noting, if you are on metered leccy it will be cheaper to run on bottled gas ..

 

[Squire]

Hello all from rainy Marbella,

:helptitanic:


We are at Cabopino & the site power keeps going on & off - sometimes 15 times per day. Sometimes restored immediately, sometimes a few minutes or longer.

What, if any, implications might this have for the fridge? One of our friends here has already suffered a failed fridge. Could the power fluctuations be the cause?

Cheers

Billkce:Sad:

I don't think cycling on/off will cause damage - after all, that's what the thermostat does - but I think voltage fluctuation will. Low voltage results in proportionate increase in amps - and that in turn results in a proportional increase in temperature within the compressor motor windings. In short (no pun intended), prolonged low voltage can burn out the motor.

That's why you should never persist in trying to start your engine with a flat battery - the amps being pulled increase beyond belief and burn out the starter motor just because you're trying to get the engine to turn over the danged compression - you know the sort of thing - we've all been guilty of it sometime or other. And probably smelled the result .... oh:

 

[John & Joan]

We have quite a solid electric supply on the site we are on in southern Spain. It was very cold two nights ago and we had a power cut. Otherwise no problems.

As a result of the above posts I have just checked our voltage and it read 211v

John

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