Boo docking with a residential refrigerator

[jerryneal]

Anyone have any experience boondocking with a residential refrigerator? We have a reg frig in our 5er. It needs about 1 amp of 120v to run with a 7 amp kick when the compressor starts. Current set of 4 T105s gives us about 80 hours of frig, LED lights, water pump, a few hours of TV along with a little furnace. Has worked well for overnights at Wally's or the truck stops. No solar or gen set yet. Seriously doubt we'd do weeks at Q, but would be nice to have an option for occasional stop for a week now and then in the remote west.

[Yarome]

I'm not quite sure what the specific question is, but doing a little math if I were looking to do that.. 1amp @ 120v would roughly translate into 10amps of 12vdc. I would use a rough estimate of 15 minutes per hour of run time.. giving me basically a 60ah draw in a 24 hour period. To that I would add parasitic draw of 24ah's which is just unavoidable in that situation. That's with nothing else turned on... giving me 84ah's per 24hr's.

 

So the fridge and parasitic draw alone would require me to have 420ah's (84x5) of battery capacity. If I don't want my batteries to be drawn down more than 50% then that would mean I would need 8 - T105's... absolute minimum... just to run my residential for 5 days without hook-ups. Only 4 and I could only make it for 2.5 days (theoretically) or would have to draw my batteries down to "0".

 

The above isn't really very realistic though as none of the components will be at 100% capacity with 100% efficiency. It doesn't account for anything other than the fridge and the parasitic draw. My inverter is going to be pulling an additional 24ah's a day in overhead which "busts" my theoretical 2.5 day capability.. even at 100% efficiency... which it won't. No lights, no water pump, no TV, no vent fans, furnace, etc.

 

I would imagine.. when you say you can make it for 3 days on battery.. that's probably just about right (since your fridge may not be operating 15min/hr which is giving you a little wiggle room from my hypothetical) from what you said you are running.. but I would imagine you're batteries are being run to nearly dead in doing so.. which is pretty harsh on T105's.

 

Just food for thought..

[Dranoel]

I just completed a 600W solar install on my rig. According to the Kill-a-Watt, our 23 cubic foot Whirlpool residential fridge averages 7.5 or 6.2 amps/hr with the icemaker turned off. We have 400 Amps of storage. But, only 200 available unless we damage the batteries by frequently using more than 50%. Adding parasitic and other use, I estimate we need to run the 2k Yamaha generator about 1hr/day or so to keep up. More if the sun don't shine.

[Jack Mayer]

I just completed a 600W solar install on my rig. According to the Kill-a-Watt, our 23 cubic foot Whirlpool residential fridge averages 7.5 or 6.2 amps/hr with the icemaker turned off.

Could you leave it plugged into the KilloWatt for 24 hours and see what the reading is? I'm curious and keep a table of specific fridge usage to help people plan for residential fridge installs.

[Yarome]

Could you leave it plugged into the KilloWatt for 24 hours and see what the reading is?

 

I would be very curious to know that as well. Would it be possible for you to post the model number of you fridge as well? It would also be very helpful to know what type of ambient temperatures you're currently in.

 

Much obliged.

[Dranoel]

Sure guys. That was a 48 hour reading on a 25 cubic foot Whirlpool GSC25C4EYY, not 23 cubic feet. Temps were in the 80s when I checked it. Not a serious boondocker's fridge.

[Phil Saran]

I would just add a Honda 2000i to your arsenal. Cost runs about $900-1000 depending on where you purchase.

[Dale P]

Kill-a-watt is nice for measuring AC that is used by the refrig. BUT:

rule of thumb: for every 1 Amp AC = 10 Amps DC from your batteries thru the inverter.

The Ice-maker/defroster uses the most when it comes on. But it usually lasts about 20 minutes per 24 hours.

Our residential looses only about 5 degrees in an 8 hour period if/when we shut it down, which we seldom do.

See our setup.

[hdrider]

Like Dale & Susan said, our refer only looses about 5 degree's when I turn off the cooling at 10pm and turn it back on at 8am (that's when the sun pops over the mountain where we are now). We have done this many times with no issues, in fact we have been boondocking for 3 weeks as of today this time around.

[Bill Joyce]

Our residential fridge warms up much more than 5 degrees overnight. All fridges are not the same, so test yours and find out before you ruin food.

[Retiredin1993]

We have been boon docking for 5 years in our rig. We run a Honda 2000 to watch TV and top off the batteries before shutting down the Geny at 11 pm. We are up around 7:30-8:00 am and our batteries show 12.4 to 12.8. We fire up the Honda when we get up to make coffee and it is usually turned off by 8:30. I have 820 watts of solar that keeps every thing going throughout the day. We leave our 3000 watt inverter on as well as our refer. We have a GE Profile

with ice maker. No problems so far down here in

sunny Key west.