Community Forums

kenscomet · 10-10-2013, 10:59 AM

Hi All
Wife and I are looking at a 5th wheel and was wondering how does a residential fridge work when on a long trip

Dr4Film · 10-10-2013, 11:13 AM

It will keep your food a lot colder than any one of the lame RV fridges could ever come close to achieving the same results. Plus you have 50% more storage.

Power is supplied via an PSW inverter which takes 12 VDC voltage and converts it to 120 VAC to run the fridge.

Your alternator should be charging both the chassis battery of your tow vehicle and the house batteries through some type of charging system that should be in your 5ver.

Make sure that the 5ver is equipped correctly and if not have them equip it correctly to do exactly what I have described above.

A decent size house battery bank is essential.

Dr4Film ----- Richard

Dog Folks · 10-10-2013, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenscomet

Hi All
Wife and I are looking at a 5th wheel and was wondering how does a residential fridge work when on a long trip

If you drive 6 hours or less between plugging in, you won't need the extras mentioned above. The food will stay plenty cold IF you don't open it more than once.

Longer trips will require the battery bank, etc, to keep the refrigerator running while traveling.

JohnBoyToo · 10-10-2013, 01:33 PM

Just like at home when the pwoer goes out as long as you don't open the fridge or freezer (and it has a reasonable amount of cold stuff in it already)
it should be good for while

we forgot that we had ice left in the ice maker and turned off everything when in storage and went back two days later and it was still frozen... not HARD frozen, but still frozen...

Defiant530 · 10-10-2013, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenscomet

Hi All
Wife and I are looking at a 5th wheel and was wondering how does a residential fridge work when on a long trip

We have one in our Trilogy , I'm not sure what type of truck you have but our Dodge charges the battery bank as we travel so worrying about batteries draining is not an issue. We love ours our previous MH had a Norcold in it and I absolutely hated it , to wide of temperature swings and other headaches , and when we were looking to buy a new 5th wheel if a manufacturer didn't have them they were marked off the list, ours has ice and water in the door ,very nice and so much more space. You will be very satisfied with the residential

wayne-43 · 10-11-2013, 04:34 PM

I didn't see anything about dry camping, how long will the battery last before cranking the generator. at least I hope overnight, I wonder if this invertor will run anything else. (TV)

az bound · 10-11-2013, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wayne-43

I didn't see anything about dry camping, how long will the battery last before cranking the generator. at least I hope overnight, I wonder if this invertor will run anything else. (TV)

Difficult to answer. It depends on the amp hours of the battery bank, the state of charge, and what other equipment is using power.

wingnut60 · 10-11-2013, 05:51 PM

I think most fivers with the residential fridge have a separate bank of 2 batteries just to run the fridge--but not sure this is true across all makes.
Having just the normal 2 batteries and a residential fridge would sure cut down on camping without power. Most trucks can't supply much more amperage than the truck/AC is needing--charge line is designed to maintain a minimum level, not do much to raise it. One exception is the dual-alternator option now available on some trucks.
Joe

JDT · 10-11-2013, 10:35 PM

We have a Samsung RF197 in our Excel. It runs off two 6 volt batteries and a 1000w pure sine wave inverter. I figured it would run about 10 hours continuously on the 2 batteries based on its rated current draw. Of course, it will not run continuously so I'm really not sure how long the batteries would be able to supply enough current to the inverter. We don't dry camp so it really doesn't matter all that much to us. All I know is the fridge temp is always 38 and the freezer is minus 2. We had a Norcold in our motorhome prior to the Excel and it would not keep ice cream frozen and sometimes would spoil our milk.

Scout1947 · 10-13-2013, 12:23 AM

I have a residential fridge, got one as efficient as possible. It draws, they say 165 ah a day. Also told average RV draws another 65 ah a day. Total 230ah+ -. My battery bank consists of 4 USA deep cycle batteries and am adding 2 more. Power is provided by a Magnum 2812 inverter charger when on 110v or my generator. when underway you can get a Cteck charger which runs off your truck alternator to charge or top up your house batteries. Mine is a D250S.

This will all depend on the efficiency of your fridge. My hauler has a fridge in it so RV fridge isn't needed when under way.

Jack Mayer · 10-19-2013, 02:27 PM

If you look on our website in the Electrical section and go to the Residential Refrigerator topic you will find a spreadsheet you can download and play with. It will help you in the questions you have.

In general, with new and efficient refrigerators, it is really not a problem to boondock or to travel during the day. You do have to set things up properly, though. If you have questions I'm happy to answer them - I don't look at this section often, but you can email me if you like. Address on my website.