Any downside to a domestic fridge in a Class A?

Our stainless side by side with water in the door has worked extremely well since 2008. The fires referred to are another mfgr product. Set the switch for automatic and it goes to propane when shoreline or generator is off. Twelve volt would be a bit costly and really not necessary. The ice makers can be a bit finiky but still worth the occasional hassle. The residential refers have more room inside so when ours dies it will be replaced by one. Full timing can cause the door to be opened a lot and these do not cool quickly. For major drink supplies we have a Dometic 12/110 volt ice chest in the storage compartment on a slide out. It is extremely efficient and fast. It can be used as a freezer as well.

If you are looking at buying a coach with a residential refrigerator there will already be a good inverter installed and a large enough battery bank to support its use. I usually have to run my generator 2-3 hours in the morning and I always run it a few hours at night since I am going to have the lights and TV on and need power for cooking. That gets them topped of before bedtime. I don't dry camp often but the residential fridge does not slow me down a bit when I do. My GE Profile (yes, they are the same ones that are in homes) is now 15 years old and still going strong. Oh yeah, I have not defrosted it even once in all of those years and it has filtered ice/water through the door plus 20+ CF of storage. Full time without one? Not a chance!

klebs wrote:
I'm am a total newb to RV'ing and I'm also new to this forum. I'm coming up on retirement and am researching the purchase of our first Class A RV for full-timing when we sell our house. I see that a popular option is a double door stainless refrigerator with a thru-door ice/water dispenser. In fact, one I saw in RVTRADER looks suspiciously like the one I have in my house. The wife saw this and has added them to her list of must-haves when we go to buy the rig.

My question is: am I giving anything up when I choose an RV with one of these fridges? In my short history with other venues (pop-up trailers) I liked the fridges designed for campers that can be powered with 12V, LP gas or 120V alternatively. When on the road, whether engine-on or engine-off, what provides the capacity to keep a domestic fridge running? I hope this isn't too basic a question for this forum.

Most RV fridges, nowadays are gas/120vac and you don't see much 12vdc anymore. As for the residential units, they're much better, but depends on having an inverter, with a number of batteries and how much you expect to operate on without power. I installed my own inverter in this old coach and operate the OEM fridge on it when going down the road, but with two 6v batteries only, it won't last long without power, so now it's the genset if you're without a gas model. As for pulling in late in the evening and just for one night at wally world for example, it's fine and one can just let it go until morning without the door opening much or put it on the inverter, once the tv is off and just let the batteries run down during the night. Reset the inverter in the morning and the batteries will charge back up with the engine alternator while going down the road. With no inverter, you're limited to it holding it's own for awhile or having shore power or the genset running.

Hi,

You can find decent prices on solar panels here. SunElec.com

If you install about 400 - 600 watts of solar panels, it can normally keep up with the home refrigerator in a RV. Many are Samsung, as they are more tolerant to the inverter power and also very energy efficient.

You would need at least 6 golf cart batteries, or 3 of the 120 pound 8D batteries to run the refrigerator for a couple of days without needing to run the generator a lot.

Personally I would rather have a propane refrigerator, and then be able to dry camp for 2 weeks using a 400 watt solar system to recharge the RV during the day, with the refrigerator using about 35 amp hours daily. The residential refrigerator can use around 100 amp hours daily (1200 watts) and this will require more solar panels, or running the generator more often.

Fred.

Hi,

Add a decent solar system and the generator will rarely be run.

A modern residential fridge sips power so unless your travel plans include extended stays without shore power you will need to run the generator to recharge or add solar to the coach.

About the only down side might be when the day comes that it dies and has to be replaced. The only route out of the coach could require removing the windshield and using a fork lift to get it out but a side by side absorption fridge might require the same level of effort.

A residential fridge is on my list of wants for my next coach.

How long you have to run the genny to recharge the batteries is dependent upon how much of a draw you have on the batteries while the genny is off. Most run the genny about 1 hour or so in the A.M. while doing coffee and breakfast, then again in the evening while cooking dinner.

Thanks for the reply! I have a steep learning curve when it comes to the electrics in a class A. We don't plan to dry camp much but, if so, how long do you need to run the genset to charge up the house batteries?

Residential refrigerators are much more efficient then vapor phase refrigerators. The compressor doesn't run much unless the door is opened for a bit. When traveling your inverter will power the refrigerator while the batteries are kept charged with the vehicle alternator. If you plan to dry camp you'll want to run the generator in the morning and at night.

We've had a vapor phase refrigerator and 2 residential refrigerators. Residential is much better.

The problem has been with fires in ones with gas, even with many recalls, my residential fridge is great with much more room. we have operated it off the batteries for days.

In addition with those batteries my convertor can power everything in the motor home except the a/c
In our old motor home not all the outlets were hot when using the convertor.