Hauling Running Chest Freezer In Truck Bed

Ok, almost everyone is missing the point.
He has a freezer. He has a Honda generator.
The question is whether it’ll work to run the freezer on the Honda while driving.
Yes, it will work great. There’s absolutely zero reason you can’t do this. I’ve done it.
Maybe you can get by not running the freezer all day, but why would you if you could simply turn it on?

Our Class A has a removable chest freezer/refrigerator in one of the basement storage slides. Plugs into 110VAC or 12VDC. Lowest setting is 20 degrees, upper is like any other refrigerator. When we went on a month long trip we put frozen food in the chest, set the temp to 20. When we returned the frozen chicken was as hard as a rock.

Hauled one from Alaska to Texas and only plugged in at night, no problem.

Back in the day I had an Uncle that would hunt in the fall up north and bring the wild meat south to eat. He would then salt water fish all winter and bring the fillets north to eat all summer. He used a chest freezer with no generator. Would plug it in nightly at the hotels.

I did exactly what you want to do when i helped a freind move except i locked the generator up and let it run at night as well.

jffnkrn wrote:
i guess i am curious now: Why carry an extra freezer? We have traveled and camped in and rv over over 18 years and before tent camped. Never needed a freezer. if you are in need of more food, go to the store! Good Luck & Be Safe ! ! !

Long before the road to Cabo was paved, we would go fishing in Baja.

The "RV" was a VW "Baja Bug" - when the front seats were (easily) removed, you had your camp "chairs", and with two pieces of plywood modded to fit the open space where the chairs had been (no back seat) there was plenty of room length-wise for one 6ft "body" - a bit narrow width-wise for two (guys = flip a coin to see who slept outside) but was just fine for couples!..:W

We built our own (huge) freezers which were about 2' x 5' by 18" deep & pack the fish in dry ice (we brought with us).
The freezers were carried on a rack up top. Food going down was
gradually displaced by fish coming back.

Stores??..:R - ROTFL...
There weren't any Gringo "stores" for 1K miles (each way)..:B

OP - do a test in your driveway (w/ a couple of jugs of frozen water in the freezer) for whatever plan you like, and periodically check the result/s.

~

memtb wrote:

jffnkrn wrote:
i guess i am curious now: Why carry an extra freezer? We have traveled and camped in and rv over over 18 years and before tent camped. Never needed a freezer. if you are in need of more food, go to the store! Good Luck & Be Safe ! ! !

As for our carrying an extra freezer... you can’t buy elk, deer, or moose at the store. My wife also prepares large meals at home, divides them into large portions in casserole pans, labels, freezes. We eat our on food (we know who and how prepared), and DW doesn’t spend excessive time in kitchen while we’er camping or on the road!

Makes sense. we have loaded our freezer as well with extra food, now I know. our trailer is set up with generator mounted and runs the coach, a/c on when traveling at times so we don't have to cool down when we get to where we are going. maybe a mounted generator then wired and put the freezer inside, if it is small enough, just a though. but as stated earlier, maybe an inverter hooked up to the tow vehicle that will produce enough amps to run freezer while driving. Anyhow, now that it makes sense to me, happy travels, Good Luck & Be Safe ! ! !

Who cares why? Maybe they're hauling home the results of an exotic game hunting trip. Maybe they're just paranoid about eating food prepared by someone else. This is neither a complicated nor an insurmountable problem.

I can see why you'd want to run the honda while driving. When you get to your layover, you can shut it off, secure it, head inside, and relax. Otherwise you have to sit there and wait half the evening for it to run, or string out extension cords and find a place to plug in. The freezer is going to absorb less heat during the night anyway so there is no worry about thawing.

The only things unsafe about it is if the honda is running in an enclosed space, or if the honda is not strapped down so it can come flying forward in a hard stop.

Really, though, unless you're out in the hot sun in the desert, you've got at least two days before the freezer even comes close to thawing, if it's full of frozen items to begin with. Last spring we had a wind storm that took power out for 2 days. My basement was in the 50's and my chest freezer didn't even defrost.

Edd505 wrote:

gbopp wrote:
Dry Ice?

Dry ice & keep it closed, been there done that.

Me also. Carson City, NV to Columbia, MO. Dry Ice and seal up with duct tape. 3 day trip in July and still had over 50% of the dry ice left.

jffnkrn wrote:
i guess i am curious now: Why carry an extra freezer? We have traveled and camped in and rv over over 18 years and before tent camped. Never needed a freezer. if you are in need of more food, go to the store! Good Luck & Be Safe ! ! !

As for our carrying an extra freezer... you can’t buy elk, deer, or moose at the store. My wife also prepares large meals at home, divides them into large portions in casserole pans, labels, freezes. We eat our on food (we know who and how prepared), and DW doesn’t spend excessive time in kitchen while we’er camping or on the road!