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Senior Member
Brand: Thor Motor Coach
State: Georgia
Posts: 2,585
THOR #4735
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right, there's no such thing as a 'park model' Class A motorhome - it's engine tells you that. A true 'park model' is an RV, a trailer on a frame, that is typically designed to arrive at it's destination, as more of a permanent structure, for those wanting more of a 'home', and less of the 'rv' style, but still mobile if the need arises - many times including sliding glass doors, but otherwise, it's still an RV.
Residential refrigerators are simply a 120v appliance, versus an RV model, which may be designed to run on propane only, propane or 120v, etc., and some with automatic switching depending on whether you are plugged in, or not. Some even have the 12v option.
Regardless, your residential fridge and inverter is perfectly capable of handling the power needed for the appliance. When you are plugged in, the power simply flows thru the inverter and to the fridge, or for some rigs, it continues to use the House batteries, but the shore power is now also charging the batteries at the same time.
When you are not plugged in, or running the generator, the Inverter then inverts 12v battery power into 120v power, for the fridge, and any other outlets or circuits wired from the Inverter.
Many, many RVrs successfully power their fridges from their inverters 24/7. You just have to have: enough battery storage(number of batteries, total amp hours), and a way to charge the batteries(solar directly to the battery bank, or the generator power).
No propane is ever needed.
So, instead of buying propane, you can either buy more batteries, to expand the storage for your power, especially for the overnight hours if you don't have any solar, or run the generator to make sure the battery bank is kept charged, several hours per day, or more if the need arises.
When you need air conditioning, you'll be running your generator anyway, so that will charge the house batteries at the same time. If you don't run the generator during the overnight hours, that's really the only time that the fridge may have enough hours to help pull down the batteries, along with your cpap, but the fridge, even if it loses power during the early morning hours, won't get 'warm' in a relatively few short hours - it is a larger cooler, of course.
Most of us with residential fridges, inverters, and onboard generator, have a procedure for how we handle the charging of the batteries, to maintain the Inverter power to our coach. We run the generator in the morning when making coffee and charging the batteries after an overnight.
We run the generator in the late morning, early or later afternoons, if it's really hot and need air conditioning, which also charges the batteries, etc.
and then we probably run the generator for a little while at or before dark.
If we have solar, it generally is there to help augment the generator, when it's not running, and when the sun is out. Solar, though, by itself, is probably not going to provide anywhere enough power to simply 'do away' with a generator - unless you have 10kw, which would take up a whole yard, much less only the small amount of roof space you have on the RV, and would be EXTREMELY expensive.
Sure, you can replace your residential fridge with an RV model, which is actually the opposite of what most folks do who want to 'change' fridges, but it's not really as quick and easy as you might think, since now you'll need to run the propane lines, connections, cutoffs, and 12v wiring to the rear of the fridge area, AND, most of all, you'll have to purchase an EXTREMELY expensive RV fridge - just take a look at the prices versus the 'household' type fridge you already have! Crazy!!!
enjoy : )
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the Turners...
two Campers, two Electric cars
former diesel pusher traveler
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