using the inverter

[tom woodward]

5er, 353RL, 2015. When hooked up to shore power does one have to run the inverter? I have a residential refer and it works with the inverter off. What might I be losing when not running the inverter when hooked up to shore power? Battery charging??

[mhs4771]

Biggest thing would be if away for the day and CG lost power. With inverter on would continue to power your fridge. Don't know you exact setup, but our Inverter never gets turned off. Once shore power is avail it automaticly sends shore power to fridge, once shore power is removed the inverter takes over and the fridge never misses a beat.

[RMcNeal]

I also leave the inverter on all the time, except when the rig is in storage. I turn off the disconnect to the batteries in storage since the fridge does not need to run. As Michelle and Ann said, it's a backup power source for the fridge in case of power outage. It doesn't pull from the batteries when shore power is on.

[DutchmenSport]

I turn my inverter on only when actually traveling on the road. The rest of the time, when plugged into shore power, I turn it off.

We use our camper all the time, every day, at home and when traveling. If power goes out and we are not home, or away from the camper at a campground, the refrigerator will remain cold enough to keep ice cream frozen for 3 days and night. (We actually had that happen when we broke down last year and had no way to plug the camper in.)

So, if the camper looses power for a few hours while we are away, the refrigerator will be just fine for some time.

[John and Barbara]

We leave the inverter on most of the time, However most of the time when we disconnect shore power the GFI on the inverter trips. We reset the GFI and all works OK. With that being the case, If we were away from the campground and the power failed the Refrigerator would be off until we returned and reset the GFI.