Equipt FAQ: National Luna Fridge Sizes

Video Transcript

Hi, this is Paul with Equipt. One of the big questions that we get when people talk to us about fridges is: How big a fridge should I buy? It's a very, very good question and it really depends on your situation and who and what you are going to take with you.

Fridges range in a variety of sizes. We have everything from 40 liters up to 125 liters in size, and all of them serve a great purpose for their customer in certain circumstances. One thing to think about when you're looking at a fridge is the fact that now you don't have to carry ice, and ice takes volume. So any relationship between the cooler that you've been using in the past and the refrigerator is going to have a variable involved there. The cooler that you're used to is going to be bigger than the fridge that's going to be necessary for you because you are removing that necessity of ice, and so you can run with the smaller unit typically.

Here's my breakdown on what I see: For one or two people, I think anywhere in the range from 40 up to 52 liters in fridge size is a great option for you. My personal favorite is the one here that's called the Legacy Duals Dual Control. It's a 50-liter fridge; it has a 40-liter fridge area and a 10-liter freezer area. They're independently controlled and you can use the whole thing—all 50 liters—for fridge if you choose to, but if you need a little bit of a freezer area, this is a great opportunity. This is the fridge that I have taken on multi-month trips, Central America, Alaska trips like that. It works fantastic for a couple of people. What I like about it is that it gives you ample space to carry what's needed, but it doesn't take up as much room in the back of your vehicle where space is a premium.

If you go with too big of a fridge for your area, your fridge takes up all the volume of your space in your vehicle, and then you have other complications with other gear that you want to take with. So for two people, an awesome opportunity right here. If you're looking at a small family, three or four people, something in that range, I would definitely say look at the single zone 55 or the dual zone 60 liter, and more preferably the 60-liter one. You get a lot of space in that 60-liter; it's dual zone, you can freeze if you want to, or use all as refrigerator, and that gives you an extra 20% of space over this unit here and will give you the opportunity to carry what you need for a family of four, and that's going to be great.

The next range of sizes up from that is the range from 72 liters up to 90 liters. All of those fridges are the same external dimensions. Each one has a specific purpose: the 72-liter has two doors on the top of it for each zone, the 80-liter is a single zone fridge, it is one big open cavity, and the 90-liter is a single door on top but a dual zone under that single door, and one zone has a polycarbonate clear lid over what they consider the freezer section on that. They all run incredibly well; they would serve a group of six-plus people on your adventures just fine. There's plenty of room in there to make that happen.

The next level up from that is the 110 dual zone and the 125-liter single zone fridges. Those fridges are monsters, and those fridges, in my estimation, are for big van applications or off-grid cabinet applications in some circumstances. They would work really, really well. I've also seen that the 72 to 90-liter range works really well in sprinter van applications where folks are putting them on a lateral slide underneath the cabinet so that they can slide it out, open it up, get what they need, close it, and slide it back underneath the cabinet inside a van. That works out really well too.

It really comes down to what your application is, whether you are an ice cream vendor running around saying ice cream to kids, or you're a caterer that needs a lot of space to make sure that your product stays cool, or farmer's market, or whatever your application is. It really depends on what your plan is and what your uses are. If you're going to be freezing things, like keeping things really, really cold, one thing to consider is the insulation wall. All of the fridges National Noodle offers are really efficient machines. In the circumstance of going something where you're deep freezing to very low temperatures, I would suggest going with a fridge that has the 60 millimeters of insulation in the wall. It's going to help that fridge not run as often.

Those models would be the 40-liter, 55-liter, and the 80-liter, and the 125-liter. Those are all single zones with that insulation wall. The dual zones in that same application would be the 72-liter would be the way to go, and the 60-liter is split, some area 40, some area 60. The 90-liter is the same way. So deep zones, deep cooling zones, I would say a little bit extra insulation. If it's just going to be run as a fridge, my experience is that I really haven't seen a lot of energy consumption variance between the 60 millimeter and the 40 millimeter, but that's in a normal refrigeration zone from zero and up in temperatures.

So again, if you're a couple in a truck, 40 to 52 liters in here would be great. Small family, three or four, take a look at the 55 or 60 liter, maybe a little bit bigger. For groups in the six people range, 72 to 90 would work, and then of course you can go up to the large ones with the 110 and 125. Those are my experiences. I've had a chance to use all of them, and that's where I think the sweet points are for using that fridge.