Replacing RV fridge with Residential Fridge

[JCat]

My RV fridge has been dead for a week now.
The cooling unit is bad.

I was going to get a Dometic replacement, but the price is $3000 at camping world.

Today I was at Home depot and they had a nice 10 cu ft stainless fridge for $400 on sale, which will fit my current opening in my RV.

So basically I can buy 7 residential fridges for the price of 1 RV fridge, complete nonsense.

Anyway I have a couple of questions about the residential fridge.
1. How does it get secured to the RV during installation ?
2. How can I lock the doors when I travel down the road ?
3. How do I secure the items in the fridge from flying off the their shelves when traveling ? (tension bars)

Thanks for the help.

[chevyman2]

most of the new MH & 5ers come with residential fridge now. Most are not secured to the floor anywhere, they are all placed where they are up against something (kitchen Island usually) when slides are closed. Most have positive catches on top of the doors to hold the doors shut.

What powers them? Of course shore power (which could be good enough for some, since they cool down in about 3 hours), the generator, and the inverter.
-now if you replace yours with a residential style, you could run wires from your inverter into the receptacle that your fridge is plugged into.(if you have an inverter, which the OP does BTW). Then that receptacle will be powered by inverter and regular electric.

[DaHose]

I riveted L brackets to the outer case and used cabinet shims to give a solid base. The shims are screwed down to the cabinet floor. The L brackets attach to the existing outer frame and I made a decorative trim out of vertical blinds and wood grained shelf paper. The doors are held closed with some Velcro tabs that I can hide back under the trim edges.

Jose

[Executive45]

I lagged the residential fridge from the back and made two brackets for the front. We use bungee cords to hold the three doors closed while traveling. Below is a link to some pictures. scroll down about half a page.....Dennis


Residential Fridge Install

[pnichols]

Is a Norcold absorption RV refrigerator less expensive than a Dometic absorption RV refrigerator? $3000 is outrageous.

I hope my Norcold never goes out!! I wonder how much a residential absorption refrigerator (like the off-grid guys use in their homes) would cost so you could put that in an RV instead of an "RV" absorption refrigerator. Maybe "RV" product margins are approaching the nonsense "marine" product margins.

As much as I hate to say it ... it looks China better get into the manufacture of RV absorption refrigerators for the U.S. RV market ... ASAP.

[mena661]

There are a BUTTLOAD of posts on this forum about residential fridges. There is nothing that hasn't been covered 6 times. Search is your friend here.

[fcooper]

I recently installed a residential fridge. I installed a velcro strap top and bottom of the cabinet. I then placed a velcro tab on top of freezer door and bottom of refrigerator door. I also placed a smaller velcro tab on the top and bottom of the surrounding cabinet.

When parked, the velcro is pushed back into the cabinet with the end secured on the smaller velcro tab on the cabinet edge.

When traveling, the velcro is pulled out and secured to the velcro tab on the freezer and refrigerator door. Works great, and can not be seen in either position.

Fred

[j-d]

I just looked at a residential install. The owner put a screw-eye/cup-holder into the frame above the top door and below the lower door. Then a bungee cord goes between the hooks when the coach is mobile. His hooks were centered on the doors. I think I would put mine closer to the edge opposite the hinges.

[John___Angela]

JCat wrote:
My RV fridge has been dead for a week now.
The cooling unit is bad.

I was going to get a Dometic replacement, but the price is $3000 at camping world.

Today I was at Home depot and they had a nice 10 cu ft stainless fridge for $400 on sale, which will fit my current opening in my RV.

So basically I can buy 7 residential fridges for the price of 1 RV fridge, complete nonsense.

Anyway I have a couple of questions about the residential fridge.
1. How does it get secured to the RV during installation ?
2. How can I lock the doors when I travel down the road ?
3. How do I secure the items in the fridge from flying off the their shelves when traveling ? (tension bars)

Thanks for the help.

Howdy. Our experience.

1. We ran some carriage bolts through the bottom of the frame where the wheels are into the plywood below.

2. We use velcro to secure the doors together but I think door setup will be different on yours. Suggest a small snap on the top of the door to the top of the fridge. Lots of ways to do it.

3. We use the same compression bars we used on our old norcold. Only put them in place when we travel.

4. Re the power (as someone else mentioned). A 600 watt inverter with a 800 to thousand watt surge should do nicely. Recommend a sine wave inverter. Thus should work. http://www.amazon.com/Go-Power-GP-SW600-12-600-Watt-Inverter/dp/B00153CXR4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=14...

5. If you don't dry camp the generator will work fine and the run time will be good for it. Having said that the fridge will stay cold for 5 or 6 hours at a time.

You will never regret going residential. Best change we ever made and yes we are dry campers. If you are going to dry camp though you will need to think about the inverter and solar approach. Good luck.

[2oldman]

Search one word: residential

[landyacht318]

Egad, nobody ever has thought to ask this question before, surely you must be the first! Good thing you didn't bother with the search feature.

In general residential fridges need more battery, more solar, and perhaps an inverter capable of a huge surge to get the compressor spinning. Even if the compressor draws only 100 watts when running, it might need 1500 watts to get spinning.

Thats not to say it cannot work, it most certainly can and many here do so successfully. But the cost savings might not be there once all is said and done and running nicely, especially if one dry camps often.

A DC compressor fridge is not cheap, but are more efficient, and should not require as much solar or battery, and are likely built a bit tougher. Residential fridges were not designed with vehicular road stresses in mind. Some of the inexpensive residential fridges are power Hogs with no thought given to efficiency, and are not a good option, On such models, any $ savings will be short lived, once one realizes they need more solar, more battery and more inverter to power it.

Waking up to a low voltage alarm on the inverter, and dead batteries once is too much, in my opinion.

[JCat]

What about child locks anyone ordered a fridge with those so it will stay closed ?

[JCat]

I spend most of my time in campgrounds with full hookups.
When I travel I can run my genny to keep it cool until I arrive.

[newman_fulltime]

2oldman wrote:
How can I run it when I don't have shore power?

You can put a small inverter behind it 12 volt already there and if you have solaryou are set

[newman_fulltime]

they also have one on sale for 289.00 that will fit
on the back fram use a couple 1/4 lag bolts in the front a couple angle brakets.
Put a d ring at the top and bottom to where you can get to them use a tie down strap to secure for travel