Refrigerator and Amps/hrs

Hi GordonThree,

The duty cycle on the Dometic in my RV is 2:3 with the door never opened. The Norcold may be similar. That brings daily usage by just the fridge to around 40 amp-hours per day. Other folks have reported 36 amp-hours per day.

The real answer depends on the particular fridge make and model. One fellow on facebook claims 12 amp-hours per day.

GordonThree wrote:
The instaneous draw for the propane solenoid + control board on my norcold is 2.4 amps. I've never tracked the usage over an hour or day, which would vary on how much food is in there, door openings, ambient temperature, battery voltage, etc.

Don't forget the power used by the door heater. On my old Dometic I could turn it off but the Atwood is hard-wired.

korbe wrote:
mine uses 0.30

In that case, your propane solenoid must be closed. The valve has a good size return spring on it (fail-closed), and needs a big magnet to hold it open; the draw will be a lot higher while the burner is operating.

2oldman wrote:

icanon wrote:
Thanks for the answers. So basically not much more than 12 amps/day. Great!

12 ah..maybe.

It's amp-hours, not amps/hrs or amps/day.

Excuse my ignorance I'm trying to understand this amps hrs thing. :o :)

If I may continue to ask:

A) if someone requires 0.5 amp-hour what exactly does that mean for a 24 hrs period?

is the answer 12 amp-hrs?


B) how much (amp-hrs) battery do one need to run a Refrigerator for 24 hrs?

is the answer a minimum 24 amp-hrs as we don't want to drain the battery below 50%?

Again thanks for the replies.

mine uses 0.30

icanon wrote:
Thanks for the answers. So basically not much more than 12 amps/day. Great!

12 ah..maybe.

It's amp-hours, not amps/hrs or amps/day.

The instaneous draw for the propane solenoid + control board on my norcold is 2.4 amps. I've never tracked the usage over an hour or day, which would vary on how much food is in there, door openings, ambient temperature, battery voltage, etc.

Thanks for the answers. So basically not much more than 12 amps/day. Great!

when on propane the only thing using 12v is the computer board. don,t think you could measure it.

Maybe 0.5 amp-hr. It's insignificant.