Freezer temperature

[Kirk S]

I've looked at the units with residential refrigerators. They require shore power or generator power to operate. Not sure if an inverter running off the coach battery being charged on the road would keep up with demand. Does anyone have experience with this?

[5picker]

Originally Posted by Netgain

I've looked at the units with residential refrigerators. They require shore power or generator power to operate. Not sure if an inverter running off the coach battery being charged on the road would keep up with demand. Does anyone have experience with this?

Many new campers are built exactly this way with a residential refrigerator running off an inverter and work just fine.

[SidecarFlip]

Originally Posted by 5picker

Many new campers are built exactly this way with a residential refrigerator running off an inverter and work just fine.

Couple requirements however for any compressor fridge and that is sufficient battery power and an appropriately sized inverter as well as an adequate supply of recharge current for the battery bank, ether by on board solar, shore power or generator. The battery feed from your tow vehicle may, or may not be sufficient to keep up with a compressor fridge going down the road.

Compressor fridges are pretty power hungry.

[Kirk S]

Thank you both for the information that the sales people I spoke with were not too sure about. If I ever get a residential refrigerator for the road I'll be sure it has enough power of some kind to stay cold.

[rockfordroo]

Originally Posted by Netgain

Thank you both for the information that the sales people I spoke with were not too sure about. If I ever get a residential refrigerator for the road I'll be sure it has enough power of some kind to stay cold.

Residential fridges stay pretty cold for a long time without power. So assuming you're 6-8 hrs between hookups, you're probably fine. Maybe some real-life owners can chime in.

[SidecarFlip]

Compressor fridges are getting popular in smaller sized RV's now. Dometic offers a 4 cubic foot compressor fridge for the smallest pull behind units and truck campers now.

Lot easier to deal with site wise and better able to cool of warm food. One big drawback of an absorbtion unit. With an absorbtion unit the food has to be loaded already cooled or frozen because most units cannot cool off or freeze unfrozen food.

[TimVWulp]

Hi is TT level ? refrigerator needs to be level to operate properly! Have you tried gas or electric? or just electric. Unit is still under warranty any FR dealer can fix the refrigerator for you. From what you are describing it sounds like the freezer cooling coils did not get attached to the cooling plate in the freezer resulting in very little heat transfer from the freezer mainly cooling in the refrigerator portion. Freezer should run about 0 deg. ice cream will melt at about 18 deg.

[Mr Havercamp]

The more heat you can get out of the area behind the fridge the more efficient it will be across the board. That's the reason when absorbtion fridges are installed in a conventional location (with roof vent) you seldom read about temperature issues in forums, but when installed in slideouts (upper wall vent) many people have complaints.

As 5 picker said, an interior fan helps with cold spots. These things are smaller but people tend to attempt to cram as much stuff in as they can get in their 26 cu ft fridge at home.

3 trailers with 3 differnt brands of absorbtion fridges here, Norcold, Atwood, and Dometic, and never any temp issue other than freezing the eggs at times due to overloading. None were installed in a slideout.