Opinion on fridge option

Dennis,

I'm sure if you are like the rest of us, you have been surfing around the forums to get as much info as possible on the residential fridge vs gas/electric decision. It's another one of those personal decisions based off whatever is important to you.

We are in the process of planning to go full time. We have owned one RV in the past with a gas/electric fridge and had no problems with it over six years. But we only used the trailer for weekends and vacation.

Our next RV will have a gas/electric. The Norcold 18.3 cubic foot Polar Max that came out a few years ago is very large and in my wife's and my opinion, erases the pro that a residential fridge is larger.

For us, we decided why limit ourselves as to where we stay to include overnight in a parking lot or whatever. Although we have friends with four batteries and a residential fridge and a generator that get by okay. Another friend is adding solar that takes up cargo space and capacity.

I really never had an issue with stuff staying cold in our gas/electric fridge but many who have more experience with the residential fridge claim the freezer works better. Not a concern for us, because we did not experience that to be a problem in the RV we owned, nor the one we rented and the one we borrowed from a family member.

Some say the gas/electric RV fridge takes a long time to cool down. Not a concern for us as we will be full timing in it and the fridge will always be on.

If my travel style was to stay in places with electrical service I would not be as concerned about having a residential fridge. But then again, on our last seven day trip we lost power twice in parks we stayed at. And in another we only had 30 amp service and it helped to cut the fridge over to gas/electric.

One thing for sure. Of all the blogs I've been following where others have residential fridges. Some write about power concerns. Never hear that out of the bloggers with RV fridges.

Some are still worried about fire hazards with an RV gas/electric. Even after all the recalls. One of my blog followers posted where you can get an add on device to monitor temperatures of concern that will shut down the RV fridge. It's called an ARP Controller. https://www.arprv.com/Here is a link. If that's true and the device works then the fire hazard concern may be mute.

Another friend, who has an RV gas/electric fridge also has solar and four batteries for other electrical items. His inverter runs down his battery bank if left on overnight.

I hope you find a few of the pros and cons listed in all this. Again, it's a personal decision. I know I am partial to the RV gas/electric but will admit if we stayed in parks all the time with electrical service I'd consider a residential fridge. And just have a small generator in case the park has an electrical problem.

Residential and add enough solar to keep it running.

Simply put if you ever boondock or dry camp do not go with an electric only fridge. You will end up regretting it. A buddy took his out and paid a small fortune to get a gas/electric model. Even with 4 batteries he was not able to run hardly anything else in his camper and keep his batteries up enough even with 400 watts of solar. Now with the gas electric he has absolutely no issues for weeks on end running what ever he wants. JMO would never get electric only unless I stayed solely in campgrounds.

I can only offer is my opinion after having both types. The residential fridge has so much room, and keeps everything really cold, the Gas/absorption old style was small, and the freezer was kind of poor .
We have an inverter and 4x 6 V deep cycle batteries, and when fully charged, keep the refer running for about 15 hours. Then I need to start the generator and charge up again.
We have a system that involves day time charge up, and night time quiet times and don't open the refer door too often, using a small cooler outside for some beers or soda.
We love the residential refer!!

A residential fridge requires at the least a 400 aH battery bank and 5 to 6 hours of ginny run time when dry camping over a 24 hour period. Our friends made this mistake.
If you always camp with hook ups it's fine until the power goes out.

If you ever camp where there is no power then your residential fridge, the one with the inverter will flatline your battery quickly. The other will run anywhere so long as you have a small amount of 12V.