We pre-chill our refrigerator for a day or so before we leave, run on gas till we get to camp, electricity in camp, and gas back home.
We are back out in 10 days, so should I turn it totally off and do the entire process over, or let it run For 10 days on shore power? I wonder what the break point would be, days or weeks, where one would let it run vs. turn it off till the next trip?
14dbs, Honda ridgeline
[quote source="/post/3528/thread" timestamp="1410541226" author="@ron"]We pre-chill our refrigerator for a day or so before we leave, run on gas till we get to camp, electricity in camp, and gas back home.
We are back out in 10 days, so should I turn it totally off and do the entire process over, or let it run For 10 days on shore power? I wonder what the break point would be, days or weeks, where one would let it run vs. turn it off till the next trip?
14dbs, Honda ridgeline[/quote]I would turn it off. The break point is only the amount of time it takes for it to cool. So if that takes a day, then you would only leave it running if you're going to leave again within a day. There's no penalty to turn it off. The amount of energy it takes to cool it down is actually less than if you were to keep it running thanks to [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convective_heat_transfer"]Newton's law of cooling[/a]
thank you. more from a longetivity perspective, I was wondering what was best for the life of the refrigerator, not so much the energy perspective. In my prior life i supervised some commerical kitchens, and some vendors told us to turn off refrigerators and freezers over the summer, and other vendors said, absolutely not, leave them running.
thanks r
[font face="comic sans ms" size="3"]I'll chime in here and say that the electric heater for the fridge cooling unit has a limited lifespan, just like a light bulb (well, the old style incandescent bulbs that is). As it is used, it will slowly deteriorate over time and weaken the filament. That heater is just like industrial heaters I dealt with on the job, and eventually they will open up or short to ground and you will have to replace it. It will be a while before that will happen hopefully! However if that happens, just switch to gas and you will be OK.
[span] [/span]Check out my other thread on the 80+fridge not working for some excellent videos on fridge service.
Happy camping![/font]
Quote from: @ron" source="/post/3595/thread" timestamp="1410829103thank you. more from a longetivity perspective, I was wondering what was best for the life of the refrigerator, not so much the energy perspective. In my prior life i supervised some commerical kitchens, and some vendors told us to turn off refrigerators and freezers over the summer, and other vendors said, absolutely not, leave them running.
thanks r
That's an interesting question, but I suspect it has something to do with conventional fridges using compressors. They probably last longer if they're running regularly. Since the absorption fridge in your rv doesn't have any moving parts I'm guessing it doesn't have the same issue.