I see them becoming more common these days. Do you have one in your RV ? Do you like it ?

Many seem to have their own dedicated inverter. Do the reisi's travel well? I'm curious in real world conditions, how long will one keep food, running off of a standard group 24 battery (or two) ? If your tow vehicle is running (while traveling), will it charge enough to not deplete the batteries the fridge is running off of ?

Looking a couple / few years down the road ( read: out of warranty ), if one fails, how would it be swapped out ? I assume most RVs would need to go to a dealer where they would remove a slide so the fridge could be swapped out ? This is assuming one could not be repaired reasonably.

I certainly see the benefit for anyone who parks their camper in a seasonal site. Curious how feasible they are for those who do a lot of traveling. I realize a residential fridge would rule out dry camping for most.

I did a search here, but didn't find much for results. If I have missed this discussion, please steer me in the right direction.

 

We do not have one in our 2011 Montana High Country 313RE.

We did not want one and will not ever install one in our trailer.

We prefer to boondock whenever possible, and the gas/electric fridge just makes sense. Also, we have a double wide fridge, so the advantage of a larger residential fridge would not be that much in our situation.

I think battery drain would be dependent on the size/quantity/type of the batteries. Size and draw of the fridge and use of the fridge as in opening the door to access goods.

RV fridges come out in a similar fashion that residential fridge is removed, except you have hardwired electrical and a gas line. With the residential, I believe they are utilizing the 120 plug just like you would at your house, but could be wrong. RV fridges tend to be more expensive because of their dual fuel/energy capabilities, but seem to last a good deal of time as well.

For us, the RV version was the no brainer. Someone that is a state park/RV park camper might prefer the residential.

The best advice I can offer is educate yourself on the use, power draw and limitations of the fridge on both sides of the fence. Then at that point make a decision and go from there.

 

I rent houseboats every few years for vacation and they all now have residential fridges (likely because they are cheaper to install vs. gas/electric. These boats have 6-8 heavy duty batteries and everytime we rent they remind us to run the generator for at least 3 hours a day to ensure the fridge doesnt drain down the batteries.

It says a 16cuft fridge consumes about 6amps of 120vt power which is 720 watts ...this calculates out to just shy of two hours of continous run time on a group 24 battery. I'd opt for gas if available....

 

Because of the lawsuits with the gas/electric fridges they are going to be a thing of the past.....

 

If I had the residential fridge in my RV, I wouldn't go any less than 4 large capacity 6 volt batteries, plus at least 3, 130 watt solar panels. That would be a minimum.

Dealers selling trailers with a residential fridge, and only installing a single 12 volt battery should get kicked in the nuts. They are not looking out for your best interest at all.

Of course, if you are plugged in 24/7 then a residential fridge is probably the way to go.

 

I might add... my friend Mike. has a one year old Georgetown motor home v10 gas.. its Residential Refrigerator failed.. under warranty.. they had to remove the large windshield to replace it...

2 house batteries and an Inverted to keep it running.
and it has a 200 amp alternator to keep things charged while driving down the road.

that is the only thing I know of that issue.

 

I happen to have a residential fridge in the Cardinal in my sig, first time. All prior had gas/electric. First off, I never boondock, as all the places around here are too tight for a 42' fifthwheel. I run a pair of 6v golf cart batteries, and the refer is running off a 2000watt xantrex inverter. I've let it go all day not hooked up, and the onboard battery monitor didnt move. I know those arent very accurate however. Furthest we have travelled so far is about 300miles, and batteries stay charged while hooked to truck while towing. So, my experience has been very good. We do some weekend tailgates for U of Michigan football games, but then we are on generator the entire time too.

Unless our camping patterns change, I wont go back to a gas/electric refer. More room, builtin water/ice maker make life much better for us.

As for the question about service, the refer is the counter depth, less than 24" deep with the doors removed. I havent measured the entry door, but it is also wider than they used to be. I suspect that the refer would come out the entry door, with possibly having to remove the refer doors first.

Another benefit, the way I see it, is that there are two less holes on the outside of the trailer. No need for the air vents low and high that are required for gas refer.

 

This comes up all the time with the group we travel with, it's about 50/50. Some travel without a inverter but they are hooked up every night and report they have no problem going up to 6 to 8 hours without it warming up, others run a inverter with solar panels. Remember that even if you have batteries that are rated at 150 AH you can't run them down that far in the real world.

We still have our 14 year old Dometic gas/ electric unit that I installed a new Amish cooling unit in last summer and because of the way we travel with overnight drycamping and some boonbocking for up to 2 weeks at a time. We also have a small chest freezer and a dorm style refrigerator, the chest is used year around unless we are boonbocking for extended periods of time, it will keep up for up to two days without power but after that it's hookups or generator. The dorm refrigerator is normally used when we are sitting for a period of time but if we are only going short distances I use our inverter and the truck has no problem keeping the batteries up to full charge with the truck running. The dorm refrigerator will not hold it's cold compare to the chest because the door is in front not on top like the chest. Front doors have a gasket all the way around and unless it's perfect cold will leak out, remember cold goes down.

If we ever decided to go residential I would use a inverter with a transfer switch so it's seamless between 12v to 120v, that's what we have now and someday I will wire a dedicated rec to both the small frig and freezer, for now I use a extension cord.

You will have to decide how you are going to use the trailer but here's something to think about, in the last couple of years we had to stop twice going across the salt flats because of high winds, on the east side we just stayed in a rest area and the west side in a parking lot and didn't have to worry about the frig.

Denny

 

We camp out in the boonies quite a bit and I don't want a res. fridge. We're starting to look at new trailers and right now I consider that a disqualifying item. I may have to change my thinking down the road, but right now I don't think its a good fit for a trailer. If I was to have to go this route, I'd want (4) 6V golf cart batts (currently have 2) and at least 200W on the roof, if not 300.

 

Only real issue affecting choice is whether you boondock. The household models should have the same level of reliability and effeciency as the one you have at home. In my experience the AC/propane will not. They should both go through the door for removal. May be exceptions, but I am not aware of any.

It is true in motor homes, if you wanted to remove any four-door fridge of either type you have to take out the windshield, but you normally did the rebuild on the floor of the coach so removal was not required unless you wanted to change refrigerators.

We boondock so have RV model. If we went campground to campground, we would have household. We do have an inverter wired in so all we would have to do is add more batteries, but that is a heck of a lot of added weight to drag around.

No good or bad here, just how you camp, in my opinion. I do think ultimately residential models will be standard and rv models will be option.

Steve

 

We like the versatility of propane. We don't boondock but we do stay in Walmarts/Sams clubs a lot.


With a residential I see them becoming larger, that is the only benefit I can see. Sometimes it gets a little crowded in the fridge.

 

I guess it all depends on your daily needs/wants for power but I think the system would still be under powered for a residential fridge to run 24/7 for a period of time. Plus possible upgrading the inverter but again depending on your daily needs/wants for power.

 

I put one in the last 5th wheel we had. We were the envy of our group. We had the oldest camper and everyone wanted to keep stuff in our fridge because they didn't have room.


We have the electric/propane fridge in the new camper. Whenever we are travelling, I run the fridge on electric with the inverter, 4 6v batteries and the 3 solar panels. Never have an issue. We had a storm knock the power out at a campground we were in a couple years ago. I was able to keep the fridge on electric all night and never got the batteries below 11 volts. As soon as the sun came up the voltage jumped right back up.


The residential units are not insulated as well, but they do not cool down as fast when you first turn them on either.

 

You're right, it would not meet stand-alone power requirements, but we always run a generator 2-3 hours a day. My system would provide enough supplemental power to keep things topped off. It would also be important to have a big enough charge converter to do some significant charging while on generator. Maybe disconnect the original and install a decent automatic charger.

 

It would be nice if the LFP batteries would come down to say, $199 for 150 a/h.