Residential refrigerator

Regarding your specific questions:

Residential fridges generally work just fine in RVs. They are not particularly sensitive to leveling, certainly less so than traditional absorption RV fridges.

Efficiency is hard to compare. From a pure thermodynamic or total energy consumption point of view, the residential fridges are more efficient inherently; however, the energy source they need is different. A residential fridge running from an inverter uses a fair bit of battery power, and battery power is sometimes much more constrained than propane. If connected to shore power, the residential fridge will use less total electricity than an equivalent absorption fridge on AC power.

I think most residential fridges will more readily keep up on hot days; they tend to have a little more "reserve" cooling capacity than most absorption fridges.

Residential fridges work very well if you rarely dry camp or if you have a large enough solar and battery setup to supply the required electricity. The absorption fridges are superior if you need to minimize electrical usage and electrical system size/complexity or if you want the utmost in silent operation.

No draw backs? Everything has some pros and cons. I just read previous posts and see a few complaints. Doors come open on the road. Need to strap them shut. Not a big thing but just something to be aware of. Most RVs with residentials have a larger battery bank and inverter to power it while not plugged into shore power. If you boone dock a lot I wouldn't suggest one. Open the door and read the power requirements. Then check to see if the RV supplies those electrical requirements from the battery bank. If you are driving from RV park to RV park probably not a problem. Just don't take the salesmans word. Do the calculations. Salesman told me that the extra battery bank would run it for a week off the grid. :B Total BS. Actually could run it for about 8 hours if running nothing else. Some friends have one and they added a self starter on the generator when the battery bank reached a low level. Excellent idea.

We love ours. It cools down quicker has a lot more room. We used to carry a cooler for pop/beer which we had to buy ice for. Now it all fits in the refrigerator, no more ice to buy. If your planning on doing a lot of camping where there is no electricity then you might want to stick with the gas/electric model. We are very happy with ours and won't go back to a gas/electric one..

Our belief is that the residential fridge benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Although a residential fridge requires AC power only (not propane or AC/DC) the motorhome must have an inverter to provide power when not plugged in or using a generator. Depending on the motorhome and the fridge, the inverter may last only a few minutes to several hours. New RVs tend to already have the inverter sized accordingly.

We recently replaced our traditional Norcold fridge with a Haier residential fridge and are completely happy with it - we get more stoarge space, quicker cooling and more consistent performance. We had to add the inverter but the whole project was well worth it in terms of satisfaction. My wife loves the ability to put a whole gallon of milk in the fridge and I like the ice cream not being so soft!