House Refrigerator VS RV Refrigerator
Been looking at new 5th wheel trailers about half coming with house refrigerator (110 volt only) and the other half coming with large RV refrigerator (propane, 110 volt). Not sure if going with a h...
Forum Discussion
creeper wrote:
RV fridge takes forever to get cooled. We usually turned it on at least 5 days before the trip. You must have had a real dud. 2-3 hrs ahead of time is usually fine. If you are packing it with pre-chilled food, you can turn it on when you load the fridge.
Rv fridge always have trouble keeping up on hotter days.Never had this issue. Were you per chance leaving the door open...a lot?
RV fridge has many accessories fans to make them cool better.What fans?
RV fridge can run on propane for dry camping.Yes, that's thier biggest advantage.
RV fridge very dangerous, lots of fires.Electricity can cause fires too. The few RV fires I've seen and heard of were all electrical. Not saying you can't have a propane fire but it's not the end of the world.
Generally smallish.They come in different sizes just like compressor based dorm fridges aren't the only size you can get.
Our new Residential fridge.
Cools rapidly, we turn it on the morning of our trip.
MUCH colder then RV fridge
Much larger capacity. Tons more ice.
Cheaper to replace.
Usually comes with inverter, batteries and solar panel to support fridge.
Not so great for boon docking, but doable.
We don't have to run the generator while we drive. The inverter handles it from the alternator. We've tested it not running with the inverter in 100 degrees plus in the campground. Left it for 6 hours and it was still cold when we got back to it.
We'd never go back to a RV fridge. I was really tired of soft ice cream and cool beverages.
To the OP:
- If you are going to snowbird and you pay directly for electricity consumption, there are advantages to a compressor based fridge.
- If you will be away from power posts frequently, the added cost and complicaiton of a solar/battery/inverter system to keep the compressor based fridges going, makes propane advantageous.
I suspect the push towards compressor based is mostly a cost cutting effort geared towards the snowbirds who leave the rig in a park down south year round and never need the propane option or the ability to run it thru an inverter.
