RV Residential Refrigerators

"One of the most common complaints here in the forums from folks who went the residential route is: I get to the campground and my house batteries are dead."

Hogwash.. I have never heard that before

"time to go now"......Funny that you say that about how much room you really need. The problem we have with our larger residential unit is that everyone wants to put their stuff in ours. Our daughters both have TT's. Often we have a pot luck and they always want to stick their large items that need to stay cold in our refer. When it's just us, 22 cubic feet is plenty. I put a Samsung 18' in my sister's DP and she has three adult daughters and families that often go camping with them. Same issue, everyone wants to put stuff the residential unit.

DSDP Don wrote:
Like it or not, residential refers are the future of RVing in motorized coaches and now some large 5th wheels and trailers.

I agree. It certainly is the future. Too much bad press about propane units. However, a buddy of mine just spent $1.1m on a custom Newmar King Aire and $250k on a custom 55' 5th wheel trailer for the sand toys. Both came with 24 cubic foot residential refers. My buddy is always "bigger is better!". The 5th wheel has an 80" tv mounted on the outside behind a compartment door! It is just him and his wife that go camping for the weekend. How much refer room do two people really need for a two day trip? How much freezer space? Not much. So, everything just bounces around in the very large refer.

They both much prefer the four door Dometic they had in their Fleetwood Revolution over either of the residential units. They just think the Dometic was much better suited for RV use. And it was plenty big enough.

It really does depend on how you plan to use it.

We were just at a RV show in Florida. The salesman from Forest River said the residential frig was a $2000.00 adder. This was because of the battery bank and more powerful inverter.

We have had a residential fridge since Aug 2010
I think I have read every fridge thread on this forum, since our repaired Norcold blew up..
I don't remember a 120v fridge user complaining about dead batteries
There have been lots of nay sayers, and lots of questions and conjecton from non users, but no actual user making dead battery complaints

And as far as more room....Yes a compressor fridge has more interior storage space than an RV fridge of the same physical dimensions, because all that rear space used by the coils, is part of the inside space of a residential fridge , the compressor working parts take less space

wa8yxm wrote:
One of the most common complaints here in the forums from folks who went the residential route is: I get to the campground and my house batteries are dead.

Your usually pretty accurate with your posts about power and consumption. I've been reading these posts for 9 years and never heard the above stated by anyone. I installed a Samsung in my Diplomat and my new Dutch Star came with a Maytag. I've never arrived anywhere with dead batteries.

"RayChez"....The difference in insulation and design is what allows for a larger refer. You can fit an 18 cubic foot Samsung in a 6" taller hole (usually a cabinet or dead area above or below the refer is usable for install), sticking out the same difference, as you can a Norcold 12 Cubic foot LRIM. That's a 1/3rd larger!

I'm glad, along with others, that you've had such good luck with your refer, but the majority of the RVing world with the Norcold LRIM's haven't been so lucky. I also don't think 38 degrees is all that special. I know that 38 degrees is like a gas mileage rating. That's what you get on a cool day without travelling.

I don't see where you get that people do nothing but complain. Do you think that thousands of us have made up the issues we're having with the Norcolds. Not only are they problematic, they had to develop a safety switch to keep them from catching fire and a cottage industry was developed to sell new cooling units for them!

Like it or not, residential refers are the future of RVing in motorized coaches and now some large 5th wheels and trailers.

RayChez wrote:
Complain, complain, that is all I read in this forum. The same posters over and over complaining about the Norcold 1200 LRIM. I have had mine since April of 2003 when I bought my coach new and so far I have not had any problems with it. Inside the fridge it stays at 38 degrees and on the side by side freezers it is so cold that ice cream is hard. So I can not complain about the Norcold.

Now my comment about residential refrigerators is that they are just fine if you stay in a resort where they have full hookups all the time. Some claim that they are much bigger. WELL! they can not be much bigger because where are you going to fit it. The hole where the Norcold fits is only so big, so common sense tells me if you replace it with a residential fridge it has to measure pretty much the same, unless you have it sticking out like a sore thumb. Now these real big new coaches most already come with the residential refrigerator, but they also come with eight or more batteries which is added expense when you have to replace eight batteries at a minimum of $150.00 a piece or even more. I believe I read one of Mr Marks posts where he stated two of his batteries cost 25K each ION batteries I believe. How would you like to buy a couple of them babies.

I think I would definitely install solar panels if I had a residential fridge to keep the batteries charged.

Hi Ray, wow, I've been quoted! LOL!

Actually, our new coach has 3 Lithium Ion house batteries, two engine batteries and a battery for the generator. The Lithium Ion batteries cost $7,000 each and used to be more and will continually go down as time goes on. Also, they are much lighter than a full bank of batteries.

One thing good about these batteries is that they are guaranteed to last at least 10 years and then can be rebuilt at a much reduced price when the time comes.

The Lithuim Ion techonolgy allows the batteries to have full power until they hit zero (like a cell phone). Motors don't like to have decreased power that you could get from wet cell/glass mat batteries.

Our coach is not the norm as it's very upper end. We have four 3,500 watt inverters, the engine has 4 alternators, 4 roof airs, two electric fridges (one inside, a small one in the bay).

On our previous coach, which was all electric, it was very easy to boon-dock. Just start the genny two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening. We had 8 house batteries and 2 chassis batteries.

The recharging was perfect, charge during breakfast and again during dinner. :)

MM.

fcooper wrote:

RDG wrote:
Has anyone just used the 110V plug and not added an invertor and extra batteries when replacing the Dometic with a residential fridge? I know you can't boon dock but any other issues?
Thanks, Bob

Yep. No other issues if you have a coach with a generator. The unit will stay cold for several hours with no power if you leave the door closed. We run the genset for heating and cooling when going down the road, and do not boondock. Residential unit works great for us.

Fred

Thanks for the information.
Bob

RDG wrote:
Has anyone just used the 110V plug and not added an invertor and extra batteries when replacing the Dometic with a residential fridge? I know you can't boon dock but any other issues?
Thanks, Bob

Yep. No other issues if you have a coach with a generator. The unit will stay cold for several hours with no power if you leave the door closed. We run the genset for heating and cooling when going down the road, and do not boondock. Residential unit works great for us.

Fred

wa8yxm wrote:

WyoTraveler wrote:
For example, if you are driving and most of charge is going into supporting your vehicle i.e. headlight etc. there may not be much left to recharge the bank of house batteries. Solar works. Same problems occur with electric cars. You can't just drive in and fill up with electricity in a couple of minutes.

On the grid any fridge will pretty much work.

One of the most common complaints here in the forums from folks who went the residential route is: I get to the campground and my house batteries are dead.

In short: Dead on sir, You are dead on.

Wait a minute, you say supporting headlights etc? that stuff is off the chasis batteries, has nothing with the house batteries that run the resi frig. what are you guys smoking tonight?