Pros / Cons of residential appliances? (fridge mainly)

janstey58 wrote:
2oldman, I am talking about briefly "parking" unlevel to say check in at a CG or run into a store.

very good.

X2

laknox wrote:
I tow a bit nose-high with the fridge running and have towed from PHX to San Diego and back, several times, with no problems.

Moving is not a problem. It's the sitting still.

janstey58 wrote:
2oldman, I am talking about briefly "parking" unlevel to say check in at a CG or run into a store. I have done this and quickly turned back and turned off the old flame thrower Norcold to save it from melt down. No mention in my original post of landing in a very unlevel camping spot. I no longer have to worry about short term parking the RV while a bit unlevel with the res fridge.

FWIW, my 13 y.o. Norcold seems to work just fine. I tow a bit nose-high with the fridge running and have towed from PHX to San Diego and back, several times, with no problems. I boondock frequently and I know I've been just a hair off level, maybe 1/4-1/3 bubble, but I don't know how that translates to degrees.

Lyle

2oldman, I am talking about briefly "parking" unlevel to say check in at a CG or run into a store. I have done this and quickly turned back and turned off the old flame thrower Norcold to save it from melt down. No mention in my original post of landing in a very unlevel camping spot. I no longer have to worry about short term parking the RV while a bit unlevel with the res fridge.

Our 12 year old dometic gave up the ghost last year. We mulled over replace with RV fridge or residential. We opped for a new dometic as we do dry camp occasionally.
Now if we had a diesel MH with diesel generator and a decent battery bank the residenial would be a no brainer.

janstey58 wrote:
No need to worry about parking in unlevel spots and frying your $3.5K RV fridge.

You're exaggerating just a bit. If it's too unlevel for the fridge it'll be too unlevel for habitation.

Just right size your batteries/inverter and augment with a bit of solar and you will be good for most boondocking conditions. Mine only pulls 1A when the condenser is cycling, very energy efficient. No need to worry about parking in unlevel spots and frying your $3.5K RV fridge, and the ice maker output kicks butt compared to my old deathwish (fires) Norcold 1200 with ice maker. Increased cu/in storage is also a plus.

John & Angela wrote:
Depends on your RV and how many batteries you have. Not to mention solar. If you have 4 X 6 volt batteries and a 300 or 400 watts of solar you can pretty much leave your fridge on indefinitely when in storage. Modern residential fridges don't use a lot of power. Ours uses less than an amp and a half and that is only when its cycled on which is about a third of the time. Dry camping you should have a little more solar for the rest of the coach. Solar is cheap now a days. We have no problem dry camping but we still run our generator when we use our microwave or toaster or coffee maker for any amount of time. Those are bigger loads. In bad weather our biggest loads are the TV's and computer which get a lot of use if we are couped up inside.

Cheers.

We have the same set up as Rusty, I mounted 3 100 watt panels on our roof. They do a great job of running our residential fridge while off grid. I only have 2 6 volts batteries at this time though and if we get too many cloudy days here in the midwest (Wisconsin) I can run out of power. I'm still on the fence about adding 2 more 6 volts to the trailer. If we lived in the southwest I believe we'd be all set.

We've had propane powered fridges before, this is our first residential fridge but for us, the way we travel the residential is a no brainer, love how well it cools and how fast it can cool down if we shut it down for extended periods and it's larger size.

Dan

Perfectly level is impossible.