residential refrigerators Iin a TT

Dog Folks wrote:

NanciL wrote:
My thoughts:
1. It is nice to have both the electric and gas option which you won't have with a residential refrig.

2. A residential refrig will add way too much weight.

Jack L

A residential refrigerator is much lighter cu. foot for cu. foot in size.

Are you sure of that? I poked around on the net and have seen a few smaller (8 cu.ft.) apartment refrigerator and they come in about 130 lbs, same as a similar sized RV refrigerator.

Our tt has a full size residential fridge. We are seasonals so it works out great. I hated trying to fit everything in the rv fridge our old tt had.

NanciL wrote:
My thoughts:
1. It is nice to have both the electric and gas option which you won't have with a residential refrig.

2. A residential refrig will add way too much weight.

Jack L

A residential refrigerator is much lighter cu. foot for cu. foot in size.

RV refrigerator can go as much as 300 pounds or more. Residential is under 100.

Now if you want to go off the grid and add batteries for the residential that is a much different story.

The residential fridge will weigh roughly the same or less for the same amount of cubic footage.

If you get a compressor based RV fridge such as a Novacool or Norcold with the Dan Foss compressor, the power usage is manageable for dry camping purposes with a 400 to 500 watt solar system and robust battery bank. eg at least two batteries and preferably three or four. The new compressor type DC fridges use very little power but still more than a propane type when on propane. When our dometic fails we will be replacing it with a DC compressor model RV fridge.

Side note, I think the large bar type fridges are okay if you don't intend to dry camp much but they use considerably more power than the dedicated DC RV compressor type units.

My thoughts:
1. It is nice to have both the electric and gas option which you won't have with a residential refrig.

2. A residential refrig will add way too much weight.

Jack L

Do you wan to spend time off grid? If in a campground all the time I would get residential. If you want to boondock off grid you will be entering into a whole different area of power consumption and generation.

Don't listen to a sales person. Research what these guys in here are saying. As I said above, it depends on how you camp. I'm learning from these guys so I know what to do if my frig dies. I also have a battery charger and a Honda 3000 and 4 6 volt batteries though.

Comes down to keeping things cold when not plugged in. Our outdoor kitchen fridge will defrost if we travel over 2 hours.

Power is generally the primary concern. Additional battery(s) and an inverter to keep it powered while not on shore power. Then there's the need to recharge the batteries that needs to be considered also.