Gas or electric? Which cools fridge faster

A friend just diagnosed he needed to clean his fridge gas burner. It was cooling much faster and better on elec. Once cleaned it worked normally.

Propane will start cooling cycle quickest....but after first couple hours there is no real difference in affect from either heat source.

My Norcold is 24 years old and still ticking. It sometimes does not want to start up on gas, usually if you run it on electric for a little bit it will then run on gas fine. Sometimes when you switch it straight to gas instead of the ignitor trying to go off it goes straight to the red fault light. If you let it "warm up" on electric, it will usually then switch over to gas just fine.

I find it cools faster on gas. I usually leave the RV in the driveway the night before a trip on electric, though, to get it cooled down before getting underway.

Steve

Kanga Bunny Roux wrote:
Mine just crapped out after 29 years. So I will move to a residential fridge or Dorm fridge if I find one to fit easy. I'm gonna miss that old gal. Always thought a gas fridge was just the neatest thing. I cannot find a replacement thermistor anywhere.

29 years, what a run!!! I'm curious ... why aren't you going to replace it with a new, or another used, gas fridge?

I agree with you on a gas fridge being a very interesting piece of technology. So did Albert Einstein - in fact, I think he was a key player in the invention of it: http://io9.com/5706535/the-story-of-einsteins-refrigerator

Mine just crapped out after 29 years. So I will move to a residential fridge or Dorm fridge if I find one to fit easy. I'm gonna miss that old gal. Always thought a gas fridge was just the neatest thing. I cannot find a replacement thermistor anywhere.

To answer the OP's question my experience is that propane generates cold more quickly than AC. Since we spend most of our nights without hookups LP is the primary source for refrigeration however....

The night before we leave on a trip the C gets parked in front of the house. I plug into AC from the garage, run the frig/freezer and in a couple of hours the freezer has frozen the ice cube trays and the frig is cooling down nicely.

We have 4 large and 4 small Blue Ice blocks that get frozen solid in the home freezer the night before we leave. I place half of these in our Igloo cooler (got one that will hold ice up to 3-4 days), which is filled with beverages and the other half goes into the frig for the drive (no I do not run with the LP on while driving).

After a full day of driving the drinks are ice cold as is the frig and the ice in the freezer does not even come close to melting. The key is to stay out of the frig/freezer as much as possible. For the rest of the trip I place half of the Blue Ice in the freezer every night and in the morning switch that batch out with the ones that were in the Igloo. Between the Blue Ice and two ice cube trays we never need to buy ice and all of our food and beverages stay frosty cold.

Works for me!

:B

the bear II wrote:
Put a bag of ice in it to help cool quicker if you need to.

I fill a couple of large soft drink bottles with water and freeze them ahead of time then put them in the fridge and freezer when we're leaving.

Cold fridge and cold water to drink.

My old Travelcraft this past weekend was slow to cool on electric. I put it on gas and cooled down fairly quick, switched it back to electric and it maintained it all weekend long so I think from now on I'll make this a standard. This was the first time I used my camper and was told electric was slower by the camper sales that inspected it for me after buying it.

Gas.

Gas definitely seems to be faster. I use a 1 gallon water jug that I fill completely with ice and then with water. The fridge is noticeably cool after a few hours.

-Michael