Residential Fridge Practicality

CarnationSailor wrote:

John & Angela wrote:

CarnationSailor wrote:
Here is a comprehensive tutorial on solar power installations for RV's. It includes a short section on solar and residential refrigerators. Just scroll about halfway down the article.

http://roadslesstraveled.us/rv-solar/

If you don't want to checkout the website, here is a summary of what the author says about residential fridges and boondocking:

"If you plan to boondock a lot, and you don’t want to run your generator 24/7, be prepared to outfit your rig with over 1,000 watts of solar panels and close to 1,000 amp-hours of battery capacity to power a residential refrigerator."

I am curious where that number comes from. What model of fridge do you have that uses that much power. We dont dry camp any diiferent now than we had a propane fridge. Mind you we run our generator during meal prep times so lets say 90 minutes per day. Yes we have a robust solar and battery bank but we always have.

Our fridge draws about 1 amp when the compressor is running, which is about 20 minutes out of the hour. Its rated at 368 kwh per year or a KW per day.

We would never consider having another propane job. If we ever buy another rig and it had a propane fridge it would be out the door pretty quick.

Regarding your question, "What model of fridge do you have that uses that much power.", I can't answer it because I was quoting the author of the article I referenced. You could read the article and decide if what the author is saying is valid.