How long will LP last for fridge cooling?

sch911 wrote:

MountainAir05 wrote:
Propane will last, your 12v battery will not.

X 2

Yeah you gotta have 12V power and LP to run the frig.....

Yep ... your LP will last much/much longer than the batts!!

EMaznio wrote:
I plan to park my motorhome in dry storage for 2 weeks and don't want to empty our fridge & freezer. Does anyone know how long a 50 gallon LP tank will last running the fridge & freezer only?

With a full 50 gallon (minus the 20%) tank, and you ONLY have the fridge running, you'd most likely last about 3 months or more on that amount of propane. But, as has been stated, the batteries are needed to run the PC control board that runs that fridge. So, if the voltage on those house batteries drop enough, the control board will shut down and, guess what, so will the fridge.

As for the flame going out while unattended, the "now-a-days" fridges are all built with built-in safety factors. If the flame goes out for some reason, the system will attempt to re-ignite. If it fails to ignite for a given amount of times, it shuts down completely. Some will give the "start up" system a rest for a given amount of time then, attempt to start re-igniting. If it still continues to fail, it shuts down again.

But, in the event a there is a "flame-out", no fuel is flowing at the time. If there was fuel flowing while the fridge had a flame out, can you imagine what would happen the next time it tried to ignite? It would look like one of the scenes in a Arnold Schwarzenegger "Rambo" movie.

So, for that reason, the regs don't allow for fuel flow while in a "No-flame" situation.

Now, does all this mean you can leave it running and be unattended for as long as you're planning, well, not really. That's up to you to make that decision.
Scott

There's approximately 91,500 btu's in a gallon of propane.
Say your fridge burns 2400 btus an hour (varies depending on size of fridge).
So one gallon of propane will last about 38 hrs. However that's if the refrigerator runs constantly.
Say it runs for 8 hours out of a 24 hr. period a gallon of propane should last about 5 days. 50 gallons------250 days

Now that fridge also needs that 12V DC for the control circuit. That and other parasitic DC loads (LP Detector, Emergency shutoff Solenoid, clocks/radio, etc.) will draw battery down in about a week.....then no more fridge working.
Couple of days without being on.......bring a large trash bag and cleaning supplies.

That is IF the LP continues to work without having some kind of problem

I'm all for operating fridge on LP......I do so when traveling etc.
BUT unattended for 2 weeks.........not such a good idea.

MountainAir05 wrote:
Propane will last, your 12v battery will not.

X 2

Yeah you gotta have 12V power and LP to run the frig.....

You could probably go for 6 months if the refrigerator was the only thing using propane. We usually fill ours once or at the most twice a year and use the furnace, gas stove, gas water heater, and refrigerator for 2 - 3 month trips.

Having said that I'm not sure leaving the refrigerator working and unattended for 2 weeks is a good idea. If the flame goes out and for some reason (wind blows it out, dirt particle gets into the igniter or burner, etc.) and it refuses to restart you could have a real mess. I know it's inconvenient to empty it, but in the long run it may be the best idea.

Propane will last, your 12v battery will not.