residential fridge

[mickey48]

i would like toswapout my norcold fridge for residential. but would like to see how i need toinstall my inverter?

[Cptnvideo]

Wizard, shore power goes through inverter to breaker panel. Inverter can limit shore current, but unfortunately only on Line 1.
Yes, fridge has its own breaker.
The charger part of the inverter has only been turned on once, that was after 2 solid days of rain when I had to run the generator.

[time2roll]

I assume not much off-grid camping. Otherwise need minimum two group 27 batteries and a 1000 watt sine wave inverter. Mount the inverter close to the battery but not too close with the recommended 12v wire. Use a small transfer switch to connect the 120v power into the fridge circuit.

[theoldwizard1]

Cptnvideo wrote:

To answer the inverter question, we wired our 3kw inverter direct to the breaker panel and the inverter never gets shut off.

So how does your shore power cable connect to the AC breaker panel ?

If you have a combination inverter/charger/automatic transfer switch it would connect directly to the inverter.

Cptnvideo wrote:

But we could always shut off the fridge breaker if it was ever necessary to conserve a few amp hours. Our fridge uses 15ah.

I am guessing you mean that the fridge has its own 15A breaker.

[Skibane]

Cptnvideo wrote:
Check our signature. We have 618ah of batteries plus solar. Fridge overnight consumption is about 180ah give or take time of year and daylight hours.

Hence my earlier comment about battery upgrades probably being necessary.

[Lwiddis]

Real life numbers from Cptnvideo IMO.

[Cptnvideo]

Skibane wrote:

Cptnvideo wrote:
Our fridge uses 15ah.

15 AH would be 360 AH per day - Roughly the capacity of 4 large deep-cycle batteries.

Check our signature. We have 618ah of batteries plus solar. Fridge overnight consumption is about 180ah give or take time of year and daylight hours.

[Skibane]

Cptnvideo wrote:
Our fridge uses 15ah.

15 AH would be 360 AH per day - Roughly the capacity of 4 large deep-cycle batteries.

[Lwiddis]

If you don't plug in most of the time, get your batteries and solar system up to snuff before you get the fridge. Otherwise you'll be running your generator a bunch.

[Cptnvideo]

We replaced the 18cf Norcold with a 20cf Whirlpool. The RV fridge was tight going out the door as was the res fridge going in. We removed the steps and backed up the pickup to the door to help the transition.
To answer the inverter question, we wired our 3kw inverter direct to the breaker panel and the inverter never gets shut off. But we could always shut off the fridge breaker if it was ever necessary to conserve a few amp hours. Our fridge uses 15ah.

Edit: I should add that we are fulltimers.

[theoldwizard1]

phillyg wrote:
I've found my residential fridge stays cool enough during travel days without the Inverter on.

I'll bet your ice cream gets soft !

Skibane wrote:
If you plan on running the fridge for more than a day or two without AC hookups, you're probably going to also need to see about installing a larger RV battery bank.

Lots of variable ! How big is the refrigerator ? What is the ambient temp ? How efficient is the inverter (sine wave only!) ? How long might you go without shore power ?

A pair of 6V golf cart batteries would probably get you through 8-10 hours of driving if you DON'T OPEN THE DOOR ! Anything more, like making lunch or getting cold beverage out while on the road, and you had better have FOUR 6V golf cart batteries. You should be able to go overnight with that !

[spoon059]

I'm more curious how you plan to get a residential fridge into your camper...

[Skibane]

If you plan on running the fridge for more than a day or two without AC hookups, you're probably going to also need to see about installing a larger RV battery bank.

Typical power consumption of a residential fridge is around 1.5 KWH per day.

A typical large deep-cycle RV battery (Group 27 or 31) can supply around 1 KWH.

[agwill]

I never had any problem traveling for a day with the fridge off. It will stay cool for a long time.

[phillyg]

I've found my residential fridge stays cool enough during travel days without the converter on.