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Veebyes's avatar
Veebyes
Explorer II
Jan 25, 2015

Refridgerator replacement

Got to thinking "What if" the fridge died again. It happened in 2013, fortunately not far from civilization, but just short of $5000 & a week later we were on our way again.

The fridge was a big one, a Dometic 4 door 13cu ft. OUCH!!!

I see the trend is to install domestic fridges in the larger rigs these days which got me doing something dangerous. Thinking.

For less than half the cost of a Dometic RV fridge I can have one of 3 Samsung French door models under 21cu ft without doing much carpentry surgery...I think.

Power is the only potential problem. I have a 2KW PURE sine wave inverter charger already installed. That is one major hurdle passed. The unknown is how much power do these new domestic fridges need?

We like to dry camp from time to time doing things like 3 day bluegrass festivals. We have a Honda 2000 so that is not a problem. The battery is an AGM 4D, about 220ah, roughly the same as 2 6V GC batterys, which I am thinking is not enough for any more than half a day without having to fire up the genny.

Anyone made the change? With the price difference I can double my battery bank size & still have $1000 to put in gas for the genny before hitting the first cost of the RV dual power source fridge.

Should my still newish Dometic fail I'd like to have a plan in place. $5000 for fridge plus install was a real trip spoiler in 2013.

9 Replies

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  • DaHose's avatar
    DaHose
    Explorer
    Jan 26, 2015
    My Dometic was dead when I bought my 1983 Jamboree. Replaced with a home fridge and have been totally happy. I don't dry camp. I always do camp sites or a genny, although I do have room for an extra battery underneath and it would be easy to add an inverter. Cost of the fridge was $500. I could still buy an inverter and add a battery for less total cost than a replacement tri-power fridge would have been. Plus I would have an inverter capable of running my rooftop A/C if I wanted.

    Jose
  • time2roll's avatar
    time2roll
    Nomad
    Jan 26, 2015
    I assumed a Bluegrass Festival was camping in an open field.
    And yes skip the solar or keep it down to 100 watts(storage) if mostly in the shade when off grid camping.

    Second 4D would also be fine to save weight. I mistakenly had 8D in my head when reading.
  • Veebyes's avatar
    Veebyes
    Explorer II
    Jan 26, 2015
    jrnymn7 wrote:
    smkettner wrote:
    Get a second 8D and 300+ watts of solar and you will be in good shape.
    In fact you could do those steps now for improved dry camping.


    X2



    The additional battery looks to be a necessity. The solar, not so much as we are in the trees campers if shade is available. Lots of gas can be had for the price of a decent solar system.

    Will have to measure the battery tray to see if an 8D will fit. Was thinking of upgrading to an 8D anyway when the 4D goes. As long as I stick with AGMs I can put the second battery most anywhere.

    Lots of extra weight. The domestic fridge weighs about 50# more than the Dometic RV fridge. A pair of 8Ds will be around 300#.
  • BFL13's avatar
    BFL13
    Explorer II
    Jan 26, 2015
    Just for laughs I tried my "new to me" 1981 Dometic electric/gas fridge (maybe 3.5 cu ft? not big) on "electric" 120v (not the 12v option it has) in the truck camper we got.

    On inverter it draws 10amps DC on electric. I do not know its "duty cycle" I looked at various small fridges at the 3.6 cu ft size and they claim to want about 1a AC (it varies up and down by brand etc) so that checks out using the 10 to 1 rule for 120v vs DC via inverter.

    So if left on inverter that 10a draw is 120AH for 12 hours if the duty cycle is half and half. I think from our actual RV fridge in the 5er the duty cycle would be more like 75% in the summer, so for 24hrs that would be 180AH to run the teeny weeny 3.6 cu ft fridge!

    It starts to add up! So in our case I think we will run the fridge on gas for a long weekend. A full sized Residential fridge would be quite a challenge, but could still be worth it off grid if you do like Mr Wiz and run the gen for a bit in the morning and have lots of solar to finish up before dark.
  • jrnymn7's avatar
    jrnymn7
    Explorer
    Jan 25, 2015
    smkettner wrote:
    Get a second 8D and 300+ watts of solar and you will be in good shape.
    In fact you could do those steps now for improved dry camping.


    X2
  • time2roll's avatar
    time2roll
    Nomad
    Jan 25, 2015
    Get a second 8D and 300+ watts of solar and you will be in good shape.
    In fact you could do those steps now for improved dry camping.
  • horton333's avatar
    horton333
    Explorer
    Jan 25, 2015
    According to a post about some measurements a guy made a little while ago an apartment sized electric fridge uses an average amount of power not much different than what my 12 volt cooler uses.
    My fridge is crystallized, and a standard electric fridge will likely be the route I take in the spring to fix it.
  • chezhead's avatar
    chezhead
    Explorer
    Jan 25, 2015
    I switched to a Samsung three years ago and have never looked back. We have dry camped for up to 10 days at a time with no issues, just using to generator in the morning for breakfast and the evening for dinner. I too have a 2K watt inverter and have 4 batteries.

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