Residential Refrigerator – Good or avoid?
OK, we are on the hunt for a 5er’ to not only facilitate a relocation but we are planning on getting back into RV travel and adventure. We are looking at some used units, including several Lifestyle ...
Forum Discussion
philh wrote:
How much power does a residential fridge typically draw. Some of reported it quickly drains batteries, and others have suggested it's really not that bad.
Take a walk through Home Depot or Lowes or someplace like that and look at the energy star stickers in some comparable residential fridges. If you divide the yearly energy consumption by 365, you'll get the daily energy use in kWh, under their test conditions. 1 kWh or maybe a bit more seems to be about what I saw in my last quick walkthrough.
1 kWh roughly equates to 100 Ah from the DC system. Whether or not that quickly depletes your batteries depends on how large a battery bank you have and what sorts of systems you have to recharge it (such as solar).
My opinion: if you're basically always staying at places with electric hookups, or at places where you'll be running the generator most all the time anyway for other reasons, a residential fridge will be no problem with any installation. If you're camping without hookups or boondocking, you need to pay much closer attention to the battery bank size and probably would want a decent solar installation so as not to have to run the generator for a few hours daily. If you'll be camping without hookups in the woods or a cave, a residential fridge would seem to be a liability.
