Refer question.. How long will it stay cold?

Make it easy for her, and turn the propane on. How is she going to use the stove or oven with no propane? There should be an " auto " button on top of the fridge, so it will automatically switch over once she is plugged in. And unless you have a gas/ electric water heater, she will be without hot water too.

Cold fridge, cold food, one time 7 hours?
Not the best but you and the food will be fine.
Don't open the door even once.


+1 to just run the propane.

downtheroad wrote:
Why not run it on gas while you are traveling....?
To be extra safe, just shut if off when you are fueling).

(let the debate begin)

We've done that for 20+ years with several different RV's and never had a problem. To answer your question the hotter it is outside if you shut off the fridge, the faster it will warm up. Put it on the night before, stock it the next morning and head off. If you have to refuel turn off the propane and when you are done, turn the propane back on.

If you're paranoid about doing as suggested, freeze everything that can be frozen. Add some extra frozen water bottles, jugs, bags of ice. Ya know just like what you do with a cooler.
Otherwise, if your camper has a 3 way fridge, turn on the propane. Fridge will run on AC, propane and then DC in that order unless you override it to one mode. Check that it lights on propane. If so you're good, it's maintenance free as long as you have a charged battery and propane.
It should take you about as long to verify the gas option is working as it took me to type this.

Maybe the OP has a compressor fridge not an absorption fridge.

downtheroad wrote:
Why not run it on gas while you are traveling....?
To be extra safe, just shut if off when you are fueling).

This.
There really shouldn't BE any serious debate.

You can also freeze some ice packs and put inside with the food.
Pre-cooled with ice packs should be good for about 24 hours.

The door wont be opened at all once the food is packed in there... Its a bumper pull camper so everybody is up front in the tow vehicle. once she gets to where she is going then she can hook up to electric. We have done really well up to this point and not really had the need to use the gas. We do not have an oven (and havent needed to stove cook top) and anything we have needed to cook, we have used our little charcoal grill. We also have a little portable gas grill and the microwave. My work schedule is not going to allow me to fondle with the trailer before she leaves, other than hooking the trailer to the truck. But I will be reading up on the gas system soon. The guy at the dealership told us to never turn the gas on while the trailer was in transit so I never even thought of that as an option..Im glad to know that from here on out I will be able to cool my fridge down before we actually make it to the campsite.

If the refer is cold when you load it, and don't open the door, it should be OK after 8 hours, provided you are not traveling in 100 degree temperatures.

Now, there is no reason why you cannot turn the refer on gas and let it do what it was intended to do.

If you choose to fill the refer and turn it off when traveling, if you have any frozen food items, it may begin to thaw on you. AND if you have ice-cream products, they probably will melt. (Been there ... done that!.... that why we always travel with the gas on, we almost always have ice cream bars, Sunday Cones, pop-sickles.)

For some reason, you are not stating the make and year of your TT, or if the fridge has an auto position on the switch. Care to elaborate on this?

Regardless, the fridge with not automatically go cold when she plugs it in after an 8 hour trip, so add more to the amount of time your food will not be at a safe temp.

It's not rocket science - turn on the propane, then turn on the big stove top burner and spark it until it lights. This is to bleed air that will be in the line.

Set your fridge to Auto and unplug it. You will hear click-click-click until the pilot lights. If it fails to light, the light on the fridge will blink. Turn to off then try again. It will most likely work the first time.

If you don't want to do that, then my advice is to store your food for the 8 hour trip in a cooler with block ice - make it yourself out of half gallon milk cartons.

Hmmm, I've never even considered turning off the propane running frig while fueling. Given the PPM needed for gasoline (forget diesel) to ignite... you'd have to have a sizable spill for even a slight chance of ignition. I suppose better safe than sorry. But then again, I never bother.

Edit... after reading this I went searching for "RV gas station fires" on Google. It seems to be a lot more common that I thought. So, I'll likely be turning off the Frig now. My WH and furnace are always off while driving anyway.