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Fridge On Propane Battery Amp Hr Draw??? How Much

Golferdude21
Explorer
Explorer
I have heard soo much regarding this its funny...Some say by running a fridge on propane only...that the circuit board and igniter should use very very lil of battery a day if running 24hrs on propane...others say it will take 20+AH a day...i am looking at boondocking and dry camping and wondering what the TRUE answer is. So I can buy batteries accordingly. I have a standard Dometic 2652 Fridge/Freezer. Is it 1-2ah a day or 20+AH a day? TIA
10 REPLIES 10

philh
Explorer II
Explorer II
steveh27 wrote:
I wish Dometic would still make a fridge without electronic controls which draw electricity. My 22 year old RM2310 draws no power when on propane. It's new replacement draws around 2.5 amps which would kill my battery when boondocking.

your fridge draws 30 watts? I find that extremely hard to believe.

steveh27
Explorer
Explorer
I wish Dometic would still make a fridge without electronic controls which draw electricity. My 22 year old RM2310 draws no power when on propane. It's new replacement draws around 2.5 amps which would kill my battery when boondocking.

allen8106
Explorer
Explorer
I have 520 watts of solar and a battery monitor on my 5ver. My actual testing shows the refrigerator running on propane has such a small affect on the battery that it doesn't even register a change on the battery monitor.
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time2roll
Explorer II
Explorer II
My trailer draws 500 milliamps at idle including the fridge cycled on, propane detector and radio memory. That would be 12 amp hours per day. Get at least twice what you need to avoid going under 50% when possible.

If you have a fridge humidity switch... that needs to be off.

Could always get a meter and measure what your RV draws. We can only estimates and guesses.

bsinmich
Explorer
Explorer
In my 25 year old Roadtrek the frig runs on gas with no electricity involved. Itg is a 3 way frig. 110v, 12V, and LP. On 12V it will kill my lone battery in half the night. On LP it will run all summer on next to nothing.
1999 Damon Challenger 310 Ford

SoundGuy
Explorer
Explorer
Golferdude21 wrote:
I have a standard Dometic 2652 Fridge/Freezer.


No such thing as a "standard" Dometic 2652 - could be an older RM2652 which does allow turning off the power robbing climate control heating element OR a newer DM2652 like that in my Coachmen Freedom Express that did still have the heating element but no switch to turn it off even though the schematic may show it does exist. If yours is one of the latter then you can add your own switch just as I did.
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Sandia_Man
Explorer II
Explorer II
Never measured daily amphour draw from our similar sized Dometic fridge, but on several occasions we have left our rig for a week and our pair of GC2 6 volt batteries had no problem keeping the fridge going, and that includes an interior fridge fan I wired in that runs 24 hours a day.

Sure, batteries were getting drained but still had more than half of their reserve capacity left, I have never considered our fridge much of a DC draw when boondocking. This type of RVing is all about restoring consumed amphours and requires a multipronged approach to successfully run your rig as if connected to the power grid.

DrewE
Explorer
Explorer
It depends on the fridge (and its installation). Some have fans, some don't, for one thing.

If memory serves my fridge (whcih is a similar Dometic model) uses about 0.5A when the burner is operating, and maybe 0.2A when it is not. That works out to somewhere around 5-10 Ah per day. (That is without the "climate control" switch being on, which operates a little heating element around the door seals in case of excess condensation there; I never use it.)

If the fridge is in a slide, there are very often fans used in the installation that will consume additional power.

wanderingaimles
Explorer
Explorer
Go with the best and largest battery bank you can reasonably afford and install.
Few if any are the complaints of,,,,,
Too much truck
Too much solar
Too much power

You may be able to find the rare instance of one, but in general the complaints are going the other way.

RobWNY
Explorer
Explorer
It can be either depending on your camping conditions. I just boondocked over the 4th of July and following weekend in temps that were in the low 90's during the day and low 70's at night. I used around 14-15 AH a day due to the fridge fan never shutting off. If I boondock when temps are in the 50's, I use a lot fewer AH to run the fridge. The fan alone will use about a .5 amp draw. Add that to what the circuit board and igniter power draw and you get to the numbers I saw.
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