Residential refrigerator / A chilling Experience

[WyoFree]

You walk into a motorhome and what do you see? You guessed it, four feet of counter space with six feet of refrigerator! This thing has two doors on top with water and ice dispenser in the left door. Underneath is a pull-out drawer for moderate temperature items like flowers, probably pansies. I hate pansies, don't you?

Under the moderate temperature drawer is the actual freezing compartment big enough to hold a fully field dressed Elk, three Eskimos and a Kangaroo! And that’s just the side labeled “Wild Game”. Not even to mention the Seafood, Cow, Lamb, Chicken and fowl sections. Under the fowl sections they mean birds right?

My question is “How Big of a Refrigerator do you Need”? Or is this one of those “Yah she’s cold but she’s a beauty” kind of things? Some coach manufacturers say no worries there crab-cake, this comes with a 6000 watt dedicated inverter. What they don’t tell you is you can’t use either of the two bathrooms in the motorhome because all the bays are full of batteries. Hey but that Residential Refrigerator is sure a beauty!

Just how much do you need? Some class A’s come with something like a 10 cf refrigerator while others come with a 26 cf. Those with a 10 cf let you upgrade to the 26 cf if you want it. How much food do you need to travel with? Even if you full time do you really need that much food? I mean a lot of refrigerated items have code dates right?

I’m trying to inject a little humor here and some would say very little. But I know what my 26 cf looks like here at home and do I really want that in my motorhome? Then there’s the water and ice on the door. I don’t know about your place, but in mine the ice cubes fly all over the floor and the water squirts everywhere. You fill your glass with ice and it acts like a waterfall onto the floor. I know its nice to have cold water and ice right there on the refrigerator door but is it all that smart a thing to have in a motorhome?

Please no hate mail.

[530ktm]

Well, I have to agree with you for the most part. We dry camp most of the time and our large propane refrigerator works great for us. It does have the ice maker but it only works if plugged in or generator so we use the good old fashion ice trays most of the time. I think a lot of it depends on how and where you use the coach and for us the residential unit is not for us. We also have the ice cube dispenser at home and don't use it because, well you know why.

[WyoFree]

Yes sir, I know!

[Gary RVRoamer]

LOL, right you are! We installed a 14.3 cu ft GE to replace the 12 cu ft Norcold 1200. It's 20% larger than the Norcold, yet several inches narrower, leaving me room to build in a narrow set of shelves along side. We need extra storage more than a humongous fridge.

But a lot of people are impressed with those big fridges, water in door, etc. "just like home", I guess.

[WyoFree]

Hi Gary, it's the "just like home" part that bothers me!

[denverh]

For the type of trips we take we're never that far from a store. We do boondock on the road a lot and for that reason love the propane refrig. It shifts from propane to elec when necessary automatically. Did a cross country trip, 7600mi Nj to CA and return, and it kept ice frozen and ice cream frozen(very important in my humble opinion.) Those things that you can put a cow in use more energy and either way you look at it you have to run the gennie to feed it or the inverter power. When I stop, and we've overnighted in rest areas, marinas in New England, Cracker Barrel, etc. I don't have to worry about running a gennie. I'll opt for the RV absorption refrig thank you very much.

[WyoFree]

Hey Den, do you run your refrigerator when your underway?

[Scatterbrain]

Personally, I won't be happy until I have a 20ft rig with a 30cft Subzero fridge. :lol:


Truthfully, I'd like to have a larger fridge in my rig. I don't think I'd need a full on 26cft unit, but something larger than what I have now would certainly be nice. I don't think I'd opt for an ice maker or water dispenser though. With four people in the rig we can go through a fair bit of food while on the road Especially considering most of what we buy needs to be frozen or refrigerated.

[WyoFree]

Over the last six or so months I've looked at all of the top of the line gassers. I then narrowed them down to my top three and they are;

Newmar Canyon Star 3710 (standard with 8 cf refrigerator)
Tiffin Allegro 36LA (standard with 10 cf refrigerator)
Forest River Georgetown XL 369DS (standard with 22.5 refrigerator w/ice & water on door)

I eventually took the Georgetown XL out of the running. It had nothing to do with the refrigerator but it got me thinking. Going back to my refrigerator at home, do I want the same things happening in my motorhome and the answer was NO!

I also fail the see the need of a 22+ cubic foot refrigerator. Both Newmar and Tiffin offer larger refrigerators as an option, but do I really need something larger?

If I do need a bigger refrigerator I'd sure like you good folks to tell me why and what size you think is ideal? I'd sure like to know because I'll be living with it for a good number of years.

Thanks for your comments.

[docj]

Originally Posted by WyoFree

I also fail the see the need of a 22+ cubic foot refrigerator. Both Newmar and Tiffin offer larger refrigerators as an option, but do I really need something larger?

If I do need a bigger refrigerator I'd sure like you good folks to tell me why and what size you think is ideal? I'd sure like to know because I'll be living with it for a good number of years.

It all depends on how you use your RV. If you're just a weekender or vacationer then maybe the 12 cu ft. Norcold is Ok for you. But if you're a full-timer as we are then why wouldn't we want as large a fridge as we would want at home? We currently have an 18 cu ft residential Samsung and use every bit of it.

[jpmihalk]

We wanted a residential fridge in our "forever" RV but decided against the bigger ones for just the two of us. So we opted for an RV with a 10cf residential and more storage space. All the benefits (hard ice cream, faster cooling) with more storage in the pantry and beyond.

[docj]

Originally Posted by WyoFree

You walk into a motorhome and what do you see? You guessed it, four feet of counter space with six feet of refrigerator!

Just because many newer motorhomes have extremely small kitchens doesn't mean that MH's MUST be designed that way. Our Beaver has over 8 feet of counter all of which is usable even with the slide closed. I don't think our 33" wide refrigerator is unreasonable compared with the overall size of our kitchen.

As to why most new MH's have tiny kitchens, all I can assume is that the people who buy them like going out to dinner most of the time.

[gtsum2]

We have a 14 ft norcold in our th, but when we go to a dp later this year/next year, it will have a residential fridge no question. Family of four that does weekend trips but also a bigger 5000 mile trip each summer...gets old using the yetis all the time because the fridge is packed full...and I've never been impressed with the temp variations in a typical Rv fridge

[bruceisla]

Our Essex (Electric Appliances) has a 22cf reefer ... seems about right. We don't use the reefer water/ice in door "feature". We use bottled water and ice cube trays.