We just built ours and it's great, but...the build took hours and hours and days and then weeks and weeks to finish as my husband is a bit obsessive and wants everything to be perfect--inside and out (the early build pictures are up on our blog at www.sailblogs.com/member/seaventure and I'll upload the finished ones soon.) It does work very well and very quietly. It's a Frigoboat unit, water cooled, so the only thing we hear is the gentle waterfall over the side. We were going to get the keel cooler, but didn't want to haul now for the installation. Insulation is 4" on the refrigerator side and 6" on the freezer side. We also doled out the funds for two Glacier Bay doors, only because I kept counting those weeks and wanted the project finished so we can get sailing again!

For the 18 months previous to the build we used an Engel--which works in an auto for camping as well. We used it on the trip down to Mexico when Sea Venture was on the hard, then had a ready-built refrigerator for sailing. Plug it in and you don't have to deal with all those weeks of construction. The new units come with better insulation than our old one, though it didn't seem to mind even in the 107 degrees F we experienced in La Paz a few years back. It always kept things cold, sometimes too cold. Michael would use it as a seat and not notice that he'd turned the thermostat up a notch or two. We'd end up with frozen everything.