Residential Refrigerator

The residentials being used are also what is called "counter depth", they are only 26" deep.

Samsung Residential Refrigerator side by side with freezer in the bottom is what will be standard in my soon to be new Montana Legacy 3611rl

I believe both Dometic and Norcold are making compressor refrigerators sized to fit into a variety of small fridge applications. There are also other companies getting into the biz. including Nova kool.

http://www.novakool.com/

Two different animals here. The residential refrigerators being fitted in new RVs such as ours are just what the name says - full size residential refrigerator/freezers. Our 3 door Whirlpool (side-by-side fridge, drawer freezer) in the RV is larger than our side-by-side fridge/freezer at home!

Replacement of an existing adsorption RV refrigerator is a different story. Some individuals have found some smaller residential type (compressor cooling) refrigerators that are or are close to a slide-in fit. That becomes a matter of getting the dimensions of your existing RV fridge and doing some searching, either for fridges that will fit or for people who have changed out the same RV fridge for a residential and can provide the info.

Rusty

Now I am curious !

Which brands and model numbers are you all talking about in these residential refrigerators ???

Do any of them come close to fitting into a normal 8 cu/ft RV fridge space ???

I do not have any additional space to enlarge for something that is not a close fit to existing cutout.

No dry camping for us. Talked to the dealer this afternoon and the new Montana's have an Inverter and 2 batteries. The Samsung Refrigerator also has a knob that is threaded between all 3 doors to lock everything down when traveling. I think that answers this for me.

We have 6 batteries with the inverter. Kitchinaid double door fridge. Freezer on the bottom.
13 Winnie Journey 40u.

If you intend to dry camp put a couple of 160 watt panels on the roof and they will pretty much negate what the fridge uses. Throw a couple more up for extended stays in shadier sites. If you don't have LED bulbs in all the fixtures swap them out and your power usage will drop considerably. Plus they don't generate heat.

Congrats on the new unit.

MTPockets1 wrote:
Boondocking could become problematic unless you have a way to adequately recharge the batteries that power the inverter. Depends on whether enough batteries and how long boondocking. With RV frig with propane, no worry.

Traditional RV refrigerators that can operate on propane still need 12V to operate.

If your 12V battery dies, so does your fridge.

The control board requires 12V to operate on propane.

You will need an inverter with either 2 or 4 batteries depending on size. I run a 2800 watt pure sine inverter with 4 6v batteries. On smaller inverters you may have to switch between converter and inverter if you are on shore power or on the road. The larger inverters such as the one I have takes care of that automatically. If you want to just make sure your frig works while you are traveling you can go with a smaller say 1000 watt inverter and 2 12 volt batteries. If you want to boondocks, do solar etc. then you will need more. By the way the res. frigs are great.