Why residential fridges can work well in a coach (now)

August 10, 2015, 10:14:30 pm

There has been some good discussion why and why not to install a residential fridge in a coach. Some recent developments have converged to make a residential fridge actually work quite well, and some of the "old" arguments are outdated. I would argue the old residential fridge arguments don't take into account the new technology available today and some of the predicted "disastrous" conditions virtually never happen simultaneously.

- New sine wave inverters using solid state switching technology (instead of a 40 pound transformer) have greatly increased efficiency (very little heat and longer battery run time). Any heat produced is not added to the coach if inverter is mounted in an outside bay.

- Battery technology has improved.

- New fridges are much more efficient, once up to temp, the compressor runs very infrequently. Also heat added to the coach is much reduced by this added efficiency.

- Coaches are driven level and parked level. Acceleration / deceleration events are rare.

- Combine the infrequent compressor run time with almost always running and parking level, and the chance of running the compressor with "oil sloshing around" will virtually never happen.

Re: Why residential fridges can work well in a coach (now)

Reply #1 – August 10, 2015, 11:19:13 pm

You and Barry may have answered the what refer works in a 2003.

Maybe the engineering staffs for the brands have tested and analyzed which refers can handle the motion and temp stuff.

So maybe the brands refer other use might be a good starting point?

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