Forum Discussion

mfoster711's avatar
mfoster711
Explorer II
Aug 04, 2014

Turning the gas and fridge on in storage

Do you ever turn on your gas and refrigerator while your camper is in storage. In the past, I would usually pickup my camper on Thursday for a weekend camping trip. The prime reason I did this was to turn on the refrigerator to let it cool down. Thinking about just turning it on in storage and picking up on Friday.

Thoughts? Any reason I shouldn't do this?
  • rhagfo's avatar
    rhagfo
    Explorer III
    Do it all the time, battery does very well holding charge as when not in use we have a full disconnect switch.
    Will swing by storage yard the night before a trip and turn on the disconnect switch and start the refer.
    I see no issue, as for propane, mine is on all the time. I feel coming from a gas home that it is better for all the valves to be pressurized all the time.
    I don't see the extra propane use as a big issue, run on electricity in the campground, but the amount of propane necessary to cool down the refer is not that great.
    We also leave it running while towing to keep food cold.
    We have the habit, of refilling the propane tanks right after we return from a trip.
  • We plan to do exactly that. I figure, why not? We turn it on while sitting in our driveway, so why not in storage?
  • There are several (kind of depends) the condition of battery, do you need to fill propane prior to travel, do you have access to shore power, etc. We have found that it only takes about 4 hrs on elect. to cool our frig. This saves on propane for our trip, so if this is not an option then the use of gas will probably only take about the same time but then you are also using the battery, so it all depends but the pre cool is (in my opinion) always needed.