Switching to residential style fridge questions.

Didn't look at 12v fridges. I have a huge inverter that does nothing else, 300w of solar, and 4 GC batteries. For me this is working out great. I have the fridge installed and the window back in. I installed nice wood trim around the front/sides and then stuffed pool noodles around the top, sides, and bottom from the rear. Then I spray foamed, again from the back,around all 4 sides. I am going to leave the current vents and dead space behind the fridge. The compressor and condenser live in that "outdoor" space. This will allow the heat to escape to the outdoors. In FLorida so I run the air a lot more than the heat. I did not want to put the extra heat from the fridge in the coach. Not done yet but getting close. I have had some other projects (home bathroom remodel) that took priority. I'll post some pics when it's done.

rshrimp wrote:
I took the dinette side window out. Taking a window out took less than 30 minutes. Cleaning it up and reinstalling will take longer. I ordered a roll of eternabond double side stick to reinstall.

Just curious did you look into any 12 volt fridges. They use a fraction of the power. You also can buy 12 volt conversion kits for the existing fridge. I have thought about doing the same. I put a regular residential fridge in my 5th wheel and disabled the defrost. I found that on a three day trip to the lake the defrost not running had created a big problem. There was a ton of ice and it had compromised the cooling of the fridge. I think in this case the constant opening and closing when loading the fridge in the humid air had caused a excessive icing. I reinstalled the defrost timer due to the problems it caused being deleted. JMHO

I took the dinette side window out. Taking a window out took less than 30 minutes. Cleaning it up and reinstalling will take longer. I ordered a roll of eternabond double side stick to reinstall.

You be able to get those fridges thru the entry door?

I'm in the process of installing a EnergyStar Whirpool 21 CuFt Refer and it's energy guide says $44/year and 410,000 kWh/year or 1,123 W/day or 94 Amps/day... a fare amount less than the 1870 W/156 A/day above. $44/year is 12 cents a day although at the $0.13/kw I pay it's really 15 cents/day. It's amazing how energy efficient they have gotten these things.

All Good info Thank you! I have narrowed it down to this fridge. Avanti RA7316PST. After getting out the ruler I only have 22 inches to work with (door and hallway) This is going in a triple slide Chalet Truck Camper and will replace a 8cf Dometic which is 24 wide.
The energy guide label says 251KWH/year so when I do the math from that it is less than 60 Amp/hr/day 251/365=0.7 or 700watt/hrs/day.
700/12=<60 It's a manual defrost so this is also a bonus. (It will get defrosted when we get home and turn it off)

I realize all of the power usage estimates are just that but it looks like this is very doable and will be done before our next big trip in September. I'll make a new thread with the process.

Anyway, that fridge is 21.5 wide, 24 deep and 58 high and still is 7.8 cuft so we should have room to spare and the same room inside.
Oh and it's $450 at my door so that's a bonus! Also it weighs less than 100lbs. The Dometic it is replacing weighs 125lb

Best way is to read the data plate for the fridge in question, current draw varies greatly between fridges.

You want to find the one that lists the least amperage on the data plate.

The more bells and whistles the more the amperage on the data plate.

You are looking for one that is 1.1A- 1.2A for the compressor, and defrost mode of about 2.5A. Some fridges use a electric heater around the doors to reduce moisture build up, these types often will have a current draw of about 6A when running and those are the ones to avoid.

The lower Amp draw fridges tend to use a few loops of tubing around the door to reduce the moisture and thus have a much lower data plate amperage. These are what you want.

As far as run time, I have a 10 cu ft Haier brand (looks like Magic Chef, GE and a few other brands which can be found at Home Depot or possibly Lowes).

Typically mine runs 25%-35% from 70F to 90F per hr.

The data plate on mine listed 1.1A draw but my actual measured draw was .9A or about 108W at 120V.

Mine has a auto defrost which kicks in every 10hrs of compressor run time, in my case I added a switch which allows me to disable the defrost cycle for traveling. You may want to plan in the defrost cycle into your numbers.

My setup we have only one pair of 6V GC batts, gives us enough capacity to go about 24hrs before charging. But keep in mind I am using a Tripplite PV1250 inverter which has a power save feature. The power save feature turns off the output of the inverter when no AC load is detected. This feature saves me about 20Ahr-24Ahr of battery per 24hrs.

Since you have two pairs of GC batts and 300W of solar you should find that the fridge isn't going to drastically change your camping much other than perhaps running the gen a bit more.

Keeping in mind, removing the RV fridge you are eliminating wasted power from the 12V control board and gas valve in the RV fridge.

I am having trouble finding out how many watts these refrigerators draw and how much do they run (50% of the time or 80%) I know that will vary but looking for real life examples of what I can expect.

The yellow sticker listing yearly power used are very accurate, maybe a tad over (depends on use).

How often do you open the fridge ? You keep cold beer in there?
Many people quote 30% duty cycle
But ours is closer to 40%
But we are in it all day long, we keep cold bottle water in the fridge and ice in freezer..so we are always making iced cold tea or soda, or getting a cold bottle of water
Your use may be less than ours
Also are power use is less than stated in above post (about 1kwHr avg), because our fridge is only about 7.5~8 Cu Ft not the French door 20cu ft becoming so common

Thanks KD4UPL Thats exactly what I was looking for. 300 watts of solar and 4 6v batts should do fine. (even though I will be testing them.)