Residential refrigerator

[wefsda]

Has anyone replaced their rv refrigerator with a residential unit? If so, did you do it yourself or have someone else do the work? How much of a job was it?

[EA37TS]

David,

I haven't done it but when we started looking a Class A motorhomes we looked at a few with the RV refrigerators. Our number one priority for the wife is her crock pot must fit in the fridge so we back away from quite a few floor plans as a result.

I did talk to one dealer about doing a mod from the standard size RV fridge to a Dometic 4 door refrigerator freezer. For the mod to work there had to be enough lower, and side space to allow cutting the opening for the fridge. The depth of the refrigerators were the same so that aspect was not an issue.

If you have room on the sides and the bottom in the form of cabinets, panty etc... which can be sacrificed to obtain the necessary space the mod shouldn't be more that a medium to lower advanced level DIY project.

To go from RV to residential there are a couple of other things to consider. They are closing off the outside access panel opening, closing off and sealing the roof vent and whether or not there is a 110 VAC outlet available in the cavity or nearby to plug in the fridge. The biggest question, however, is how do you get the residential fridge into a fully assembled RV? In my Challenger, if the fridge has to be replaced I imagine either the slide or the windshield will have to be removed.

[Chance]

Dave, should an inverter and greater battery capacity for that 110 Volt outlet also be considered a part of the installation?

[Terry and Jo]

Originally Posted by kb0zke

Has anyone replaced their rv refrigerator with a residential unit? If so, did you do it yourself or have someone else do the work? How much of a job was it?

David,

You have but to ask and again I can provide. I'm providing a link over to RV Dreams where I posted a thread a couple of years ago that included links to SOITC, but more importantly, to different entries on my blog. On my blog, I posted descriptions and photos.

The Saga of a Residential Refrigerator

As for the outside fridge panels, we left them in place, which helps with any heat dissipation. When we installed our Samsung in our TKSB3, all we had to do was remove the doors and the face of the freezer drawer and it goes in the door sideways easily. Then, you can see in the links to my blog what I used to move the new Samsung around to fit into the cavity in the slide. Basically, that was a home made, 4 wheel furniture dolly with an "insert" that got it to the right height to just move around the peninsula counter and into position.

As for an inverter, we had ordered our 2010 Mobile Suites with a 3000 watt inverter and two extra batteries. With a lot of the newer RV's, they are including a 1000 watt inverter that will work just off of the regular 2 battery set-up. However, the 1000 watt will probably only work to really benefit the fridge. Our 3000 watt allows us to also use other items as well as the fridge.

If one does order an inverter, make sure that it is a pure sine wave inverter, not a modified sine wave one. The pure sine wave is better for anything with computerized circuits, including those in the refrigerator.

Terry

[davydee]

We had Indiana Interstate Enterprises/Cross RV (Paul & Kay Cross in Lagrange, IN) install our residential frig this past spring. We already had capacity for four golf cart batteries, but we only using two. We had them install four new batteries plus an inverter just for the fridge. We lost the bottom drawer below our old Dometic 1350 (we're a 2011 36 RSSB, so your configuration may be different) and the inverter sets above the box for our second set of golf cart batteries. Paul left the exterior panels in place, while installing a solid piece of insulation on that wall. Paul then cut a part of the panel at the bottom door for access (we just just reach in and remove the panel he cut for access.) We have the Samsung RF 197 without water in the door. We didn't have the water line to the ice maker hooked up, either. The Samsung vents at the floor where a small plastic cover can be removed for cleaning, etc.

I'm not mechanically inclined, but we have friends who are. The did their on installation and added quarter-round to the sides & top closing the gap and making it look prettier. They installed "soft" installation vice the hard panel that Paul used.

We real happy with the new frig. The way Paul wired ours, you have to turn off the circuit breaker to the frig and the inverter to turn the frig off. When switching the frig to the inverter (unplugging from campground power), the inverter shows 13 amps @ 13.3 volts. It eventually settles down to 9 amps @ 12.8 volts. Common to see it at 7 amps & 12.8 volts when we pull into a campground. We haven't dry camped with it, yet, so we're looking forward to see how that goes.

Good luck! David

(on edit: ditto to Terry's info on the inverter.)

[missourijan]

After our Dometic 1350 went through 3 cooling units and 1 complete frig changeout, all covered by Dometic, when the cooling unit went out again we had Slade at Rolling Retreats install a Samsung rf18. Like Davydee Slade had to take out the drawer under the space and build a platform for the Samsung. The Samsung was the only frig that would fit in the space due to the depth, Slade still had to move our kitchen island over about an inch. We did not have Slade install the inverter or extra batteries. We hardly ever boondock but we may have it done in the future. After Slade installed the frig we traveled through Needles, CA when it was 114 (last July). When we stopped the frig was about 45 but cooled off quickly. I had frozen some ice blocks and put them in the frig area. Slade also installed some trim around the frig so you can't see the insulation on the sides, it's not quarter round but that flat stuff, don't know what it's called. We are happy with the frig, it seems huge compared to the Dometic

[here4now]

Originally Posted by kb0zke

Has anyone replaced their rv refrigerator with a residential unit? If so, did you do it yourself or have someone else do the work? How much of a job was it?

I replaced the Norcold we had in our previous motorhome with a residential myself. The biggest part of the job was making a new face frame for the cabinet where the fridge was installed. You are almost certainly never going to find a fridge the exact size to fit the opening of your original RV refrigerator, so the whole enclosure may need to be re-worked. If you have the equipment and are good at woodworking, however, it's not that bad.

The other problem, especially with motorhomes, is fitting the new fridge through the door. MH doors seem to be narrower than 5th wheel doors, and even with a counter depth fridge it was a tight squeeze. You sometimes need to remove a side window or even the windshield to get the new fridge inside.

[wefsda]

Thanks, all. We replaced the original RV refrigerator with a residential unit in our MH. Yes, the door was the limiting factor. Like everyone else, we lost the space below the old refrigerator, but gained almost all of it at the top, and some at the side. I've made a temporary cabinet around the refrigerator and will have the people at Foretravel do it right this spring.

Many Foretravel owners have switched to residential units, and I wondered if that happens with DRV owners, too.