residential refrigerator

[Justme44]

I have a few questions about residential refrigerators.
1. How many amps does it pull?

2. Size of your inverter for the refr?

3. Is you refr inverter stand alone?

4. Do you have a additional inverter for the AC and other items?

5. If you have more than one inverter are they working off the same battery back?

Thanks for your help
Dennis

[jcurtis934]

Inverters draw tons of amps out of battery bank...can't do ac, etc. If you want to run something that draws 10 amps of 120vac, that means an inverter would be pulling more than 100 amps of 12vdc out of battery/batteries. In this example, you would need a battery bank of 200 amphours to be able to run that 10 amps of ac power for one hour. You don't want to use any more than 50% of available amp hours unless you are trying to kill your batteries. A residential fridge in an rv will be pulling about 7 amps of 120vac...same as running the 12/13 cuft norcold or dometic rv fridge on 120vac...when they are running to cool. Hope this puts some knowledge in your bank. John

[mhs4771]

Our Fridge pulls 11 amps when running, but because they are very energy efficient and well insulated they don't run much.
We have a 1000 watt pure sine inverter/charger, which is stand alone, powers only the fridge.
We also have a converter for additional charging and power for all 12V lighting.
If we want AC, that's what the on-board Onan is for.

[Justme44]

Thanks for the information ... I assumed most if not all the rigs had on board gens.
Thanks again Dennis

[washley1]

Dont assume...I wager most do not have a gen! Mine has the space and the hook ups for one, but when I looked at the 5 grand price tag for what I wanted, I decided I dont need it!

[dieselguy]

I agree with Walt ... a very low percentage of fivers in my camping lifestyle use portable generators let alone onboard gensets.

[Justme44]

Sorry guys ... when I said rigs I really meant those that had the residential refrigerators. My Dometic is having problems so my wife wants to consider the residential. I just can't think of having the battery power to support one. Either way I am out a lot of $$$.
Thanks
Dennis

[BB_TX]

If you (almost) always stay where you have electric hookups you should be ok. A second battery would be s good idea. From what others have reported you can do an occasional Walmart overnight and be ok on 2 batteries and inverter.

[Justme44]

Thanks BB

[mhs4771]

Before I added the two extra batteries, I did a test on the two OEM 12V batteries and just running the fridge and propane detector, no lights I ran it for 36 Hours and battery voltage was still 12.6/12.5. Onboard gennys are more common in higher end 5ers.

[Justme44]

Good info mhs Thanks
Dennis

[Bigboomer]

When our Dometic 1350 crapped out last year we replaced it with a Samsung RF18HFENBBC. Based on our usage boondocking for 3 months in Quartzsite this past winter, using the Trimetric 2030RV meter, the frig draws about 7 amps per hour out of the battery bank. I tracked it making sure nothing else was running over night and has basically did the simple math from how much the batteries were down before we called it a night. Our Magnum 2810 inverter has about 1 to 2 amps per hour slave load which was factored in when determining how much the frig uses.

These frigs do not use no where near the electric the RV frigs use which are much more than 7 amps per hour. RV frigs are very inefficient on electric and are energy hogs.

Whenever someone asks how we like the frig, I just tell them very cold beer and rock hard ice cream! Enough said!

[Justme44]

Thank you very much bigboomer... just what I needed. I have found a unit (Equator-Midea) 12 cu ft that draws 1.4 amps when running and 5 amps to start. Sold at WalMart and Costco for about $700. This unit will fit nicely into the space of the Dometic ( no woodwork needed). Will have the Dometic removed next week and I will install a Equator-Midea (push in, plug in .. done). So I will have to buy an inverter and a couple more batteries. Looking forward to "rock hard ice cream".

How is wintering over around Falfurris (SE Texas).

Thanks
Dennis

[oceandansar]

sorry for the late post we just got back from a 2 week 5 state haul covered 2500 miles. We had a norcold 1200 refrigerator fire on new years day so When I rebuilt the cabinet I installed a whirlpool top freezer 18. cu ft with ice maker and its stainless steel. I had to go with a top freezer as the fridge is on top of the water heater and I didn't want to move it. the side by side would have been close to the ceiing. any way it looks and works awesome wife loves it. the longest we went unplugged was just over 10 hours and really didn't even lose any ice in the freezer. My concern was how long we could go without plugging in so I was really impressed with it. I have a 2000 Honda generator that will run the fridge and one a/c in case we wind up in a no power situation. We don't boondock I like having all the ammenitees . Hope this helps

[chris199]

Residential fridge
2 batteries (after an upgrade)
On board/stock inverter
No generator...always stay with AC power.

[cdaniels]

We also used the french door samsung refig when our 1200 quit in March. No inverter or extra battery because we never go without hookups but if we do we will use our Honda generator. First trip out with the residental refrig on the way home we made 14 hrs (got stuck in traffic and had to be home the next day) on the road and everything stayed frozen and cold. Never would go back to the RV refrigs. No woodworking was needed.