diy solar

diy solar

A+++ fridge in a RV?

Solarfun4jim

Solar seduced :-)
Joined
Sep 22, 2019
Messages
743
Location
Sunny Scotland
Im looking at a standard home A+++ fridge (of 147 litres capacity) for use in my coach to camper van conversion. The annual power consumption is 62kWh/annum
Would'nt appear to be a big draw on my 3000W inverter. It would only be getting used during summer months....so no unheated room use.

Is a standard house fridge a big no-no in a RV/campervan? What are the main problems in going this route.
My campervan will not have any propane or gas onboard whatsoever. My battery system is 24v. I do not have any 12v dc connections. Thus to go down the route of the expensive 12V DC compressor fridges would involve the expense of an 24-12v converter.

My inverter will be running 24/7 anyways, so what is the issues with using standard house fridge?
 
I can't speak for the use in an RV as such, however I specifically selected all appliances in my place to be A+++ because I'm off-grid and don't want to use power if I don't have to. I think they work great and it's nice to see how far we've come in the past few years when it comes to energy efficiency. Unless there are other considerations, I would say it's a good match for an RV, especially one that has the inverter on 24/7. I think these appliances are more efficient than their dedicated RV counterparts because of the size of the market. They seem cheaper as well from a quick Google.
 
I know this was a while back but.......

It "might" be better to buy an inverter specifically to meet the needs of the fridge.

Find out the maximum possible Amp draw for the fridge and buy an inverter that JUST meets those needs and use it exclusively fore the fridge.

The larger the inverter, the more energy consumed in the process.

For my 1.7 Cubic foot AC fridge (purchased from Walmart) I bought a Renogy 1000Watt inverter (probably could have used the 700watt inverter to be honest).

The Renogy inverter is rated at BETTER than 90% efficiency. Not bad. Not much loss.

I am having absolute success running this AC fridge and the power usage is well within acceptable range.
To be honest, with a 100watt solar panel connedcted to my Jackery 500, I can run my fridge 24/7 on the Jackery battery (at night) and the solar panel (by day)

So, a small AC fridge, a Jackery 500 and a 100Watt solar panel and you have a trouble free, inexpensive, reliable refrigerator for your RV needs.
With 2 solar panels and a Jackery 1000 you can easily run a larger AC fridge.
 
I run a large samsung residential fridge in my RV's system. It's the biggest draw I have and averages about 14 amps per hour @13.2 Volts. I'm completely off grid and never have access to shore power. It even has a large ice maker. View attachment 30326

At 14amps per hour, you seem to be drawing more Amps than my full size refrigerator.
As they get older, the amps draw will increase.
I can run my new 22 Cubic Foot fridge off of a 50AH (actual available capacity) car battery and a so so Inverter for about 6 hours...or about 8 amps per hour.

What is the efficiency of your Inverter and what size inverter? Using an inverter that is JUST enough might be more energy efficient than a larger one than necessary.
 
I know vanlifers that are using regular home appliances with great success. Cool thing to be done there is to wire the thermostat of the fridge to also power on the inverter, that way it's only working when the fridge needs it - if you go with a separate fridge inverter that's a way to get maximum possible efficiency.
 
Back
Top