Residential refrigerator yeah.

The frig is certainly a beauty.

My EnergyStar Whirpool 21 CuFt Refer has a energy guide of $44/year and 410,000 kWh/year or 1,123 W/day or 94 Amps/day. Increase the AH to 115 for the ice maker and warm days. I have four 115 AH AMG batteries dedicated for the refer... so I can go two days without recharging at 50%.

Even before switching to residential I had to run my generator 2-3 hours/day to keep my 800 AH battery bank up when boondocking as I was running an office out of the MH. Having replaced the energy hog Plasma TV with a LED and not needing to have a office I estimate that 1.5-2 hours should do it as the refer's battery bank has it's own 100 amp charger. Yes, I now have over 1200 AH of house batteries.

Here is my DIY 1200 removal and a 21 Cu Ft install. While running it uses 8 amps of DC power and I added a switch and cables so my alternator will supply the 8 amps when traveling.

I have my first residential fridge in new coach. I understand these new ones are very energy efficient. I know at my cottage the electrical bill really dipped when I replaced one that was 15 years old.

I'd really like a res frig when mine fails BUT....where is that power coming from? Mine is also dinky compared to the big boys. Like I said we use all the power we want for tv's, laptops, leave the inverter on all the time etc but I'm guessing I would end up with 2 hours of generator time every day. AND that's generator time with a very quiet Honda 3000 that is in an insulated metal cabinet in the back of my truck with the noise directed away from people. Some of the loudest generators I have ever heard were in high dollar class A's. Sort of amazing for the price they pay. But you cant get a little sound out of a big machine. It's also very inefficient to run a 7,000 watt generator to do the job that solar or almost a 1,000 generator would do. On top of all that throw in a cheesy CONverter that is only putting out 13.6 and has cheesy wire voltage drop. Bad, bad, bad.

I have had a RR in my coach from the beginning and it takes a couple of hours of generator in the morning to get the batteries back up. I don't have solar and I like to use all my appliances (even at night) so running the generator is required in the evening to cook anyway so at bedtime the batteries are again full. Not a big deal for us. These days we actually are either plugged in or driving so it's not any kind of a deal at all. We have a 90 amp alternator and the batteries maintain 13+V the entire time we are driving (generally 8 hours/day).

I have had a RR in my coach from the beginning and it takes a couple of hours of generator in the morning to get the batteries back up. I don't have solar and I like to use all my appliances (even at night) so running the generator is required in the evening to cook anyway so at bedtime the batteries are again full. Not a big deal for us.

ford truck guy wrote:

rjxj wrote:
So you are parked where you can plug in all the time?

Why ?? he stated that he has a 2000 watt inverter and 4 batteries ..SO it can stay on during travel... why would he need to plug it in all the time ?

Because people typically drive for 4-6 hours and then park for about 72+ hours. The coach would need to be plugged in or the generator would need to be run fairly often. If the fridge uses 150A per day, the generator will need to be run at least 4 hours a day just to keep up, if parked in a dry camping situation.

ford truck guy wrote:

rjxj wrote:
So you are parked where you can plug in all the time?

Why ?? he stated that he has a 2000 watt inverter and 4 batteries ..SO it can stay on during travel... why would he need to plug it in all the time ?

With this statement we have to assume some things:
"We have a 2000 watt inverter in our coach. Four 6 volt batteries. Rv place said that should be fine but just in case when traveling I set the generator to auto and when it reaches a certain level it comes on and rechanges the batteries."

The RV place told him it should be fine. If it's not, the generator will come on and help charge the batteries. With that statement they mean that when it's rolling down the road if the alternator doesnt keep up then the generator will come on automatically. That's fine but the rig isnt going to be rolling down the road all the time when the generator can come on and not bother anyone.

The rest of the time it needs to be parked somewhere. The assumption has to be that he's going to be plugged in all the time because he didn't mention solar. If he's boondocking he will be the guy who has the generator running all the time. It's very common for my 4 six volts to be down to 12.1 to 12.3 in the morning and 80 to 120 amp hours. We use a lot of power for a 40 inch led and furnace and everything else we want but I'm pretty sure we cant throw even a small residential in here and run off my 520 watts of solar. I would be back to running the Honda 3000 a couple hours a day. Just guestimates as I do consider a smaller residential myself.

So he must be plugged in all the time when he parks or he better get ready for a whole lot of generator hours.

rjxj wrote:
So you are parked where you can plug in all the time?

Why ?? he stated that he has a 2000 watt inverter and 4 batteries ..SO it can stay on during travel... why would he need to plug it in all the time ?

On another board a poster measured his Samsung RF 197 power with a Kill A Watt and found that it uses 1820 watts daily. That translates to about 150AH from the battery which can be significant for dry camping and is a huge drain on the common 4x GC 460AH battery bank. For dry camping, recharging via alternator, gen or solar has to be considered. And the battery bank capacity is a factor.

Many campers are satisfied with the refer conversion and don’t make any additional equipment changes and rely on utility power, gen or driving/alternator.