Proudlefty
New Member
Hi, this may have been covered before but search didn't yield anything. I have some options and I'm not sure which one would be wise, could use some advice.
Background:
Just bought a 1988 Falcon 170 on Chevy G20 chasis and it did not come with the stock fridge. The previous owner just bought a dorm style AC fridge and planned to only use it when hooked up to shore power. I want to have a working fridge 24/7 and don't plan to be hooked up so it would need to be powered by my house battery. House battery is an Exide Road Force AGM 200 unless I replace with a better one and I'd like to eventually add 100-200W solar system to charge it.
Option 1: Keep the brand new dorm style fridge (Whirlpool WH27S1E) and plug into an inverter running 24/7. This seems like the least efficient option, the manual for the fridge says it pulls 120V, 60hz, 0.8A, 0.58kW.h/24h. So if my math is right then that's like running a 96W appliance non-stop. That doesn't actually seem that bad compared to many appliances that are in the 400-1000W range but they also aren't being run continuously.
Option 2: There is a used Norcold Model DC-254 12V DC fridge for sale on craigslist not far from me that I supposed I could pick up and learn to wire into my fuse block. I'm not sure what the draw specs are on this fridge but somebody online said it was 20V, 60cycles, 40W. I've heard that 12V DC is pretty much always recommended vs AC + inverter so this seems like a decent option.
Option 3: Spend more for a brand new 3 way fridge so that it could run primarily on propane and only DC sparingly and AC when occasionally plugged in.
So basically all of the options are ahead of me and I'm curious what you all would do if you were in my position. I'm not great with all of the electrical terminology so forgive me if I said something stupid.
Background:
Just bought a 1988 Falcon 170 on Chevy G20 chasis and it did not come with the stock fridge. The previous owner just bought a dorm style AC fridge and planned to only use it when hooked up to shore power. I want to have a working fridge 24/7 and don't plan to be hooked up so it would need to be powered by my house battery. House battery is an Exide Road Force AGM 200 unless I replace with a better one and I'd like to eventually add 100-200W solar system to charge it.
Option 1: Keep the brand new dorm style fridge (Whirlpool WH27S1E) and plug into an inverter running 24/7. This seems like the least efficient option, the manual for the fridge says it pulls 120V, 60hz, 0.8A, 0.58kW.h/24h. So if my math is right then that's like running a 96W appliance non-stop. That doesn't actually seem that bad compared to many appliances that are in the 400-1000W range but they also aren't being run continuously.
Option 2: There is a used Norcold Model DC-254 12V DC fridge for sale on craigslist not far from me that I supposed I could pick up and learn to wire into my fuse block. I'm not sure what the draw specs are on this fridge but somebody online said it was 20V, 60cycles, 40W. I've heard that 12V DC is pretty much always recommended vs AC + inverter so this seems like a decent option.
Option 3: Spend more for a brand new 3 way fridge so that it could run primarily on propane and only DC sparingly and AC when occasionally plugged in.
So basically all of the options are ahead of me and I'm curious what you all would do if you were in my position. I'm not great with all of the electrical terminology so forgive me if I said something stupid.