Cool down time for residential type ref ridge

yes.

If you have a residential refrigerator, your camper should have come with a power inverter. Run the power inverter when you are traveling. The tow vehicle will keep the camper battery charged. The battery will run the inverter, the inverter will keep the refrigerator powered. This will keep the refrigerator running and cold. If you stop for any length of time, the battery will run the inverter until the battery runs out. But, you can also turn the frig off. It will stay cold and the freezer compartment will stay frozen for many hours. We had ours off for over 18 hours over thanksgiving and the temperatures for freezer and refrigerator started at -2 and 34. After 18 hours, it was 29 and 54. The ice cream was still frozen.

Edit:
Oops. I just saw you have a DP. You may not have an "inverter." if not, I think you are safe to run the generator, when traveling or stationary.

I would say No. Your manual should tell you how long to run to get to the initial state. My manual says 18 to 24 hours to get to 34 for the refrigerator. Once there it does stay there for a full day when traveling if not power is applied to it. As stated run your Run the power inverter when moving. Turn off the system when long stop unless you plug in. Food does start to spoil above 38. When shopping look where there temp gauge are at in the coolers.

On ours , two hours max. 22 foot whirlpool.

Is there a reason you need to run the gen instead of plugging in while you prep to leave?

Gas absorption refrigerators can take a long time to initially cool down. Electric only, household refrigerators begin to cool immediately. They take only a couple hours to get to expected temperature.

When we purchased our Whirlpool for the house and it was delivered and set up, it was getting cold before the delivery people finished cleaning up the mess. It was at temperature within an hour. Same happened with our Frigidare upright freezer. Plugged in and it was at temperature within an hour.

The camper has a Samsung household in it. It takes about an hour for it to reach set temperature.

On the other hand, I've had 3 previous travel trailers that had gas absorption RV refrigerators. Our first camper took about 12 hours to reach temperature, our second took 8, our 3rd took 4.

I am parked in a lot with no hook-ups so power needs to come from the batteries, i.e. inverter, or generator.
I am most concerned with having a cool fridge when we start loading food around 11:00AM'ish..
When should the fridge be started?

HighwayJunky wrote:
I am parked in a lot with no hook-ups so power needs to come from the batteries, i.e. inverter, or generator.
I am most concerned with having a cool fridge when we start loading food around 11:00AM'ish..
When should the fridge be started?

Two hours before you need it cold. Really an hour will do but to be on the safe side....

Couple of hours as long as you are putting cold food in it...

But wait! Here’s the thing with an empty fridge. Cooling it down empty doesn’t mean much: there is little thermal mass in it so if you put in a 18 pack of warm beer and a 12 pack of warm sodas, it won’t be cold anymore.

If your transferring cold stuff from your house fridge, ok. We pre cook and freeze stuff to take and I’ll put that in the fridge part to help cool the fridge. You can also put in some frozen blue ice.