I am seeing a lot of newer coaches with residential style fridges that run on an inverter. I assume that they cannot run on propane. Are these or the Dometic 4-door fridges that run on propane/electricity better for boondocking? And overall, in general?Thanks for your help in advance!

I know very little, but will tell you why I chose an 8cf Dometic.1. We are without power about half the time.2 Gone with the Wynns has a video that he measured the amp hours used by a residential fridge. His would eat through 200 amp hours of battery in 6 hours. I wasn't interested in the expensive solar and batteries necessary to support this.3. There is higher than typical negative comments about the 4 door, 12cf Dometic. It has the same cooling power as the smaller models and just can't seem to keep up with 12cf.

I’ll throw in my two cents. I had Norcold not Dometic and replaced it with a residential about 4 years after I purchased my new coach. I boondock quite often and I did install 400 watts of solar, added two batteries to my existing four batteries, installed an automatic gen start and upgraded my inverter from msw to psw. All that cost around $4000, I did all the installations. Glad I did it because my fridge has larger capacity, it gets cold within 2 hrs and it’s dependable. The Norcold was ****.

Dometic also makes an AC/DC compressor fridge that doesn't use propane. We got one in the store in the spring and ran it off a fully charged group 24 marine/RV battery for 40 hours. Draws about 8 ah. Fits in the hole where most of the 8 cu. ft. models go.Clicky

The pluses and minuses.Residential refrigerators do a better job of maintaining temperature in hot weather. An ice maker is a realistic option !RV refrigerators give you the freedom to camp without electricity. If you frequently camp without electric hookup, residential refrigerator are probably NOT for you. You would likely need FOUR 6V golf cart batteries and a large solar set up or be willing to run a generator several hours per day.Obviously a good quality pure sine wave inverter is required.When driving, a simple parallel battery charging setup should run the inverter but it will NOT recharge your battery bank.

I am in the residential upgrade process replacing our 8 cuft Dometic rite know. I installed a 9.9 Cu.Ft. Frigidaire last weekend. We generally have hookups but I have the Honda twins if needed. Our Dometic just didn't have enough horsepower in the Texas heat. Of course DW keeps it overloaded. Hopefully we will have ice cream instead of shakes. Solar next.

Dometic or residential refrigerator? | Good Sam Community

Wire_Man
Explorer
Nov 10, 2018
Great topic, very good read.
imgoin4it
Explorer
Nov 10, 2018
If I bought an RV with the residential refrigerator, I’d use it. However, I have a norcold 12CF 4 door and would never trade it for a residential refer if it continued to work as it has for the past 10 years. Takes a little longer to cool down after being turned on, but ours works great and the left freezer compartment keeps ice cream as hard as ice cream can get in any refrigerator, which includes my sticks and bricks one.
mike_brez
Explorer
Nov 10, 2018
I'm gonna be pissed if my Dometic sh!ts the bed.
filrupmark
Explorer
Nov 10, 2018
theoldwizard1 wrote:
doc brown wrote:
Glad I did it because my fridge has larger capacity, it gets cold within 2 hrs and it’s dependable.

Sounds like you made the right decision.

Most residential refrigerators will keep things "at temperature" for 12 hours IF YOU DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR !

What do you do if you want a beer ?
Bill_Satellite
Explorer II
Nov 10, 2018
If you plan to do A LOT of dry camping then you need an RV, propane, fridge like the Dometic. In every other case, you will want to have a home refrigerator for safety and convenience.
tragusa3
Explorer
Nov 09, 2018
Ivylog wrote:
tragusa3 wrote:
I know very little...Gone with the Wynns has a video that he measured the amp hours used by a residential fridge. His would eat through 200 amp hours of battery in 6 hours. I wasn't interested in the expensive solar and batteries necessary to support this..

Pure BS as that works out to almost 10 KW/day ($36+/ month) and one of the many myths about energy star residential refers. My 21 cuft Whirlpool draws 8 amps DC measured before the PSW inverter and it runs less than half the time. Using a kilowatt meter it use 1.1 to 1.2 KW/day...NOT 10KW

First, I stated I knew very little and was going off of what I saw on the internet (oh boy). Second, you don't know me, so to jump in to the conversation with the term "Pure BS" is one of your more aggressive options. You may have chosen something like, "Admitting you didn't know much, maybe you misinterpreted the video, because....". I'm not sensitive, but this may help improve your interpersonal relations in the future.

Here is a link to the video I was referring to. In watching it a second time, I believe at the 5 minute mark he says he used roughly 200 amp hours in 12 hours of usage. I wasn't clear when I stated 6 hours. I was assuming 50% of capacity as my low point.

Maybe your "BS" was targeted at the video?

Video
theoldwizard1
Explorer II
Nov 09, 2018
doc brown wrote:
Glad I did it because my fridge has larger capacity, it gets cold within 2 hrs and it’s dependable.

Sounds like you made the right decision.

Most residential refrigerators will keep things "at temperature" for 12 hours IF YOU DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR !
MrWizard
Moderator
Nov 09, 2018
i put a residential fridge in the Safari
and loved having it, worked perfect 'all the time'

now with this Bounder, i have an RV fridge again
but i must say this (2) door side by side 'Elite' by Dometic
is the best RV fridge i have ever had, ice cream is rock solid
i have to let it soften before i can scoop it out
this one is definitely installed correctly

i still prefer the 'no level needed' of residential fridge, and the fast cool down,

i'm very careful about turning of this fridge when i make short 'non level' stops.. shopping etc.. to prevent accumulated damage

but this one keeps cold very well, and its only on setting '3' out of '5'
Two_Jayhawks
Explorer
Nov 09, 2018
The propane fridge's do OK they were pretty much the industry standard for a long time. I had gas absorption fridge's for almost 20 years & had only a handful of service issues/breakdowns. Small deal for some but I always hated that the freezer couldn't achieve temps to keep ice cream frozen. I was quite firm on wanting to move to a residential fridge with current coach. I can honestly say I have never once wished I still has a gas absorption unit. I think most that have residential units feel the same way.
DutchmenSport
Explorer
Nov 09, 2018
Considering we don't boondock, we really like the electric fridge in our new 5er, opposed to the gas/electric RV fridge in our previous camper. I never though I'd like the all electric one, but we do.

Now, the first time we are without power, I'll come back and update my response! We do have a generator that will keep things charged and running. But it's not strong enough to run the air conditioners, and it's loud! use it at home when power goes out mostly.