Why The 12volt RV Fridge is Amazing! RV Fridge Comparison.

how's it going i'm jared gillis welcome to another all about rvs today i wanted to share with you some really interesting tests that i did using a 12-volt compressor refrigerator versus an absorption refrigerator versus a residential refrigerator and the results really surprised me before i did this test i wasn't even thinking about swapping out our absorption refrigerator but now i am really playing around with the idea of swapping it out for a 12-volt compressor refrigerator now this is a lot different than the absorption refrigerator that we're used to in an rv that can run off of 120 ac 12 volt and propane in these newer 12 volt compressor models it has a compressor in there so it's no longer working off the absorption system on the back of the refrigerator on these newer units it's a small 12-volt compressor system on the back of this so you don't need an inverter to be able to run this type of a refrigerator now before we get into the pros and cons of this type i want to give you the numbers of how much power it takes to run each of these main three type of refrigerators now this isn't a perfect test because i couldn't get all three exactly in the same condition and the same size and the exact same setting but i think these numbers are going to be extremely telling so the residential refrigerator in a 24-hour period is going to use 1759 watt hours now that's just the base of what it's going to use on the ac side of things so that doesn't take into account the loss that you're going to have running an inverter if you're out there boondocking now if we're running this absorption fridge on ac power which we wouldn't do boondocking we'd switch it over to propane it's going to use 6756 watt hours in a 24-hour day that is a huge amount of increase and power that is needed to run this fridge when we're on ac power i mentioned the power consumption of the absorption fridge on ac power because that's how we use it going down the road our inverter is powering the fridge we turn off the propane and it's powering it through the ac so it uses a considerable amount of power so not that we're really using it that way for boondocking but it does come into play because of how much power it uses while we're driving down the road so the residential refrigerator 1759 this absorption refrigerator at 6756 and then this 12-volt compressor refrigerator comes in at 925 watt hours per day so you can see that huge gap between the residential and this 12-volt compressor refrigerator to the absorption refrigerator it takes a lot of energy in order to cool these absorption refrigerators and they don't get quite down to the same temperature but if we're going to switch this absorption refrigerator over to boondocking so we're going to be running it off of propane it still needs some 12 volt in order for it to operate so i measured that too so if we're using propane and we're using a little bit of 12-volt to make it work in a 24-hour period we're going to use 246 watt hours for that day so it still is consuming a certain amount of 12-volt in that boondocking scenario it doesn't just go to a big goose egg for what we need for power to run the fridge but as far as our electrical demand that would be the lowest possible that we could have for boondocking so boondocking that's still going to be your lowest electrical consumption but you're going to be using propane now if i wanted to offset solar wise the amount for this 12 volt compressor refrigerator i would want to go around 150 watts probably 200 watts so our portable panels are probably what would offset this fridge if we were to switch to it those things were so cheap so easy so light it's easy to take those along to offset a fridge like this now that brings us to the temperature difference so i have both of these fridges set so that they're going to be below that 40 degree mark so around 34 degrees inside the fridge area so both of these are very easy to be able to match that this one i have set at six and it can go all the way up to nine for its degrees of cooling but that sets the fridge at a really nice temperature and i don't have the 12-volt compressor fridge on max i have it one down from there and it puts the fridge at a really comfortable temperature around 34 degrees in there but the freezer in this one we're usually averaging around eight degrees fahrenheit usually between ten and six depending on how often that door is getting open and this one is sitting at that lower negative one degrees fahrenheit usually bouncing between negative six and close to zero so it puts it in that range depending on how often it's getting used now that brings us to how quickly these get down to temperature and the 12 volt absorption refrigerator took two and a half hours to get fully down to temperature and the absorption refrigerator is usually going to take about eight hours usually you want to plug that in or turn it on the day before so it can get down to temperature it takes much longer to work and the 12-volt compressor refrigerator i would trust more in the summer time i don't fully have a test on that because it's only spring right now but the absorption refrigerator when there's sun on that side and you're in the middle of summer it's going to have a hard time cooling the inside of that because it's all based off of heat and if it's too hot outside it can't have the heat and then the cooling where it needs to in order to absorb the heat out of the fridge and make it cold inside because the absorption refrigerators need to be vented to the outside that's why you have a lower vent and an upper vent you need that air exchange in there with this 12-volt compressor refrigerator you can block those vents up because this one doesn't need to be vented to the outside so you could try and make your rv a little bit more efficient by not having those vents on your rv so this is what it boils down to between looking at the 12-volt compressor refrigerator and the absorption refrigerator i had no plan of swapping out our absorption refrigerator because it's working fine and refrigerators are really expensive to swap out so this is a 12 cubic foot refrigerator and this one's a 10.7 you can see that this one looks substantially smaller than what the the space that the absorption refrigerator takes up so i'm still not sure if i'd want to swap out the fridge because this one requires less power while we're out boondocking but this one has a lot of other advantages that go along with it the only reason we got this fridge is because we were filling up propane at an rv dealership and i saw this thing sitting out in the the bay and i asked if i could film it because i wanted to do a video on 12-volt refrigerators and apparently it was broken so they were like sure you could have it so i grabbed it fixed it it just needed a compressor board and it's been working fantastic so now that the size comparison between the two of these is so similar now i'm debating whether i want to switch to this or not i do have other plans for it if i don't use it in here but it is really tempting all the advantages with this refrigerator on a side note i don't understand rv repair facilities for them in their mind it was easier just to pull this out and put a new one in when really all it needed was a board to be replaced and it took me a couple of hours to figure that out ordered the part put it in and it's been working flawless but i hope this video gives you the information that you would need to make an informed decision you can see what the residential refrigerator pulls if you're out there boondocking is going to be a little bit more depending on what inverter you have and the inefficiencies with the inverter and the loss in that conversion you could see that you'd have no conversion with the 12 volt power supply it's not going to be pulling off your inverter just from your battery bank so that 925 watt hours that it's going to be pulling in a day is going to be very accurate as an average and if you're looking for the lowest consumption for electrical without boondocking then absorption might be what you you would want now these fridges are really expensive so just swapping it out when you didn't need to and you have a working refrigerator seems like a long shot but if you have a refrigerator go down you might be looking at what are your options out there and i hope this gives you the information in order to make the decision on which direction you would like to go but i think that's gonna do it for today if you guys like this video and it helped you out give it a thumbs up if you want to see more videos about rving hit that subscribe button if we don't see on the road hopefully we will see you next video [Music] you

Channel: All About RV's

Views: 179,305

Keywords: RV, RVing, RV life, RVers, Jared Gillis, Less house more living, How To RV, DIY RV, Learn to RV, Motorhome, Class A, 5th wheel, RV Electrical, RV Repair, RV America, All About RVs, Learn To RV, RV Knowledge, RV Life, AllAboutRVs, Allaboutrv’s, RV Tips, RVing Tips, RV Fridge, RV Refrigerator, 12volt Fridge, Absorption Fridge, Absorption Refrigerator, Norcold, EverChill, Furrion Fridge

Id: RwHU_NY0Auo

Length: 8min 14sec (494 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 02 2022