keggerator

[pmoneyismyfriend]

I would assume that what I am going to describe as my keggerator is not off the wall and a fairly common practice, please correct me if I'm wrong and offer alternatives.

I have a chest freezer, plugged into a Johnson Control, which keeps the freezer at refrigerator temps. I know several other home brewers that do this also.

The reason for my post, is, my keggerator seems to not have survived the cold Wisconsin winter in my garage and does not cool any longer. I contacted the local appliance repair service and described my problem and how I was using the unit. This guy thought I was off the wall, and didn't want anything to do with this. Claims he had never heard of such a thing, that these units are meant to freeze only. So I asked, "then what is the purpose of the Johnson Control"? To which he replied, "I don't know, I've never heard of anything like this in my 35 years of business".

Is this guy out of touch? or are we just asking for trouble when we use chest freezers as keggerators?

 

[BargainFittings]

Probably didn't want to deal with anything strange. I would be very surprised if he had never encountered a home brewer.

I'm in north Texas and I typically get 4-6 years of use out of used chest freezers.

My last 3 are all new units so I'm waiting to see how long they last.

 

[augiedoggy]

newer refrigerators and freezers all use R134a and they do not do well in freezing temps as the coolant turns to slush and burns out the compressor... most aliance distributors will tell you this if you ask...
you need an old r 12 device if you want to use it in below freezing temps...

may want to test the little relay on your compressor....$6 fix....I just repaired a Craigslist kegerator this way..

 

[pmoneyismyfriend]

I see that my freezer uses the R134a, is it possible that when the weather warms the coolant will thin out? The compressor runs, so I would assume the relay test would be unnecessary.? What did you do to repair your unit?

 

[augiedoggy]

I see that my freezer uses the R134a, is it possible that when the weather warms the coolant will thin out? The compressor runs, so I would assume the relay test would be unnecessary.? What did you do to repair your unit?

if it burned the compressor out then no but yeah its possible...
the relays often fail ..on mine the relay needed to be diassembled and internal contacts cleaned with a scotchbrite pad... replacing it was $6 plus shipping... I just googled it and found the possible causes and solutions for my symptoms..