Running a residential fridge on 12 volt power?

[mrad]

My wife and I are getting close to purchasing our first 5th wheel 2 of the models we are looking at have residential refrigerators. A friend of mine said he intentionally avoided a residential because on days he Pulls the 5th wheel to work so he can head straight to the campground, he is worried the fridge would drain the battery on the RV as well as possibly draining his TV batteries.

About how long could I expect 2 12v batteries in an RV to last before the fridge would drain them?

I know depends on the reserve capacity of the batteries, but I'm wondering if they would be drained in a 9 hour period.

[theoldwizard1]

mrad wrote:
Thanks for the replies. My only concern was could I get through a work day if I pulled the rv to work so I didn't have to go home after and then backtrack again.

Start by loading the refrigerator the night before and pulling it in a home some that it is fully cooled down before you go to work. Most decent residential refrigerators will hold temperature for 12 hour if they are already at their normal operating temperature.

Two 6V golf cart batteries will have more storage capacity than two 12V batteries and will likely have a longer life.

mrad wrote:
Off grid we would have a generator.

Now that I think of it, if I had two 2800/3100 champion generators in parallel, and the fridge air compressor kicked on with one 15,000 and one 13,500 btu AC running, would I have enough power?

Should be plenty of power.

[wa8yxm]

There are Friges and Friges. At one time both Dometic and No-Cold offered high effiency 12/120 volt Fridges.. They used what I call "Danfoss Class" compressors (Danfoss is one company that makes them) I have a chest freezer next to me that uses a competitor's compressor. 36 watts. that's 3 amps at 12 volt or about 30 hours on a pair of GC-2.

I think the Uprights were about 40 watts. By comparison a pair of 1141 light bulbs. 38

[pianotuna]

mrad,

If all three happened to start at the same second, there might be a concern. But that concern could be met by having a load support hybrid inverter/charger.

[mrad]

Thanks for the replies. My only concern was could I get through a work day if I pulled the rv to work so I didn't have to go home after and then backtrack again. Off grid we would have a generator.

Now that I think of it, if I had two 2800/3100 champion generators in parallel, and the fridge air compressor kicked on with one 15,000 and one 13,500 btu AC running, would I have enough power?

This is a minor concern as it would only happen if we would ever decide to attend an outdoor concert/camping event in the future.

[navigator2346]

I have gone over 20 hours without power to my residential refer due to a bad transfer switch. Everything was still frozen, the refer portion was still within safe temperature limits. You do need power to the refer 24/7

[corvettekent]

Less then 24 hours. If you plan on camping off grid you should think about getting four batteries and 600 (or more) watts of solar.

[Retired_JSO]

Residential 22 cf here. We have a 2 12 volt batteries that allows our fridge to run off the inverter for over 15 hours without any problems.