Running refrigerator on house battery, How long?

[Casinojunkie]

How long can I run a 10cf refrigerator on house battery?
Not hooked to shore power and need refrigerator only overnight.
Battery is new 3/15/2020.
Will be using no other electricity.
Thank you.

[Adam_H]

A few years ago I did a test when I started using a 5 cu/ft residential fridge when boondocking. I could go 2 days on 2 12v batteries... Here is the link

[spud1957]

spud1957 wrote:
Lets not make this more complicated for the poster than it has to be. YES you can run your 12V fridge overnight on battery. I've had the trailer sitting for 2 days with the fridge on and no major drain on the battery.

Assuming you aren't running any other major 12V appliances during this time and you have a fully charged and healthy battery.

I've been doing this for years. I go to the storage lot 24 hours before we pack the fridge. ZERO issues.

Guess I should clarify my post. I run the fridge on propane which uses minimal 12V. :?

[DrewE]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Question

Rv reefers can now chill and not just maintain ambient? The last Notcool I owned demanded 240 watts on battery.

A fridge on propane mode, assuming a proper installation, for sure; maybe not as quickly as a residential fridge, but they most definitely can chill and even freeze food. A three way fridge on 12V mode, probably not so much.

I couldn't find much info on it, but I think it's probable that the poster's fridge is not a three way model, in as much as they're generally uncommon these days. At any rate, they did post that they would be running it on propane as well as battery power.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Question

Rv reefers can now chill and not just maintain ambient? The last Notcool I owned demanded 240 watts on battery.

[spud1957]

Lets not make this more complicated for the poster than it has to be. YES you can run your 12V fridge overnight on battery. I've had the trailer sitting for 2 days with the fridge on and no major drain on the battery.

Assuming you aren't running any other major 12V appliances during this time and you have a fully charged and healthy battery.

I've been doing this for years. I go to the storage lot 24 hours before we pack the fridge. ZERO issues.

[schlep1967]

How much food are you putting in the fridge? If you have room fill a gallon jug (or 2) with water and freeze it at the house. Put that in the fridge and basically you have a cooler. Once you have it cooled down it shouldn't need to run much.

[DrewE]

Overnight would be no problem at all with that setup.

A full 24 hour day at a minimum ought to be okay (not going below 50% charge on the battery) if the battery is fully charged to start and the fridge is the only load of note. Depending on the electric usage details of that fridge design, which a quick search with Google failed to turn up, it may be a few days rather than one day.

[Casinojunkie]

DrewE wrote:
What kind of a refrigerator--compressor-based residential refrigerator, or RV absorption refrigerator? What size and type of battery?

The RV absoprtion fridge in propane mode will easily last through the night with most any battery you'd be likely to use, needing maybe 10 Ah, give or take. A residential fridge uses a lot more electricity than the RV fridge in propane mode.

Refrigerator is a 10.5cf Norcold Model N821 12volt 1.6
I will also be using propane.
Battery is 27DC-6 purchased from Wal Mart 2/25/2020

[bikendan]

Casinojunkie wrote:
How long can I run a 10cf refrigerator on house battery?
Not hooked to shore power and need refrigerator only overnight.
Battery is new 3/15/2020.
Will be using no other electricity.
Thank you.

What type of fridge is it?
2-way won't run on just battery power.
3-way will run for quite a while on battery power.
Residential won't run on battery power unless you have an inverter.
12v only probably 8 hours or so.

Make and model number of fridge would help.

[Lwiddis]

You are missing all the basics! Can't even guess without weather conditions, battery AH capacity and energy use of the fridge. Do you want to run the battery dry (and ruin it) or just down to 50% or so?

[theoldwizard1]

cooldavidt wrote:
Depends if you are in Iowa in November or Florida in July.
But you should be OK if you drive the vehicle daily.

If you had TWO 6V golf cart batteries (one marine/RV dual purpose 12V battery will not make it) and a modern highly efficient refrigerator and a good pure sine wave inverter, I would concur. Also "overnight" implies at least 8 hours of no one opening the door !

Remember, most vehicle charging system will NOT properly fully recharge house batteries without a DC-DC charger.

[DrewE]

What kind of a refrigerator--compressor-based residential refrigerator, or RV absorption refrigerator? What size and type of battery?

The RV absoprtion fridge in propane mode will easily last through the night with most any battery you'd be likely to use, needing maybe 10 Ah, give or take. A residential fridge uses a lot more electricity than the RV fridge in propane mode.

[agesilaus]

We don't know what the current draw is on that fridge and we don't know what type of battery you have, or what condition it is in.

[cooldavidt]

Depends if you are in Iowa in November or Florida in July.
But you should be OK if you drive the vehicle daily.