Putting that Sailboat Experience to Good Use!
After 6 years of life in our sailboat, we picked up a few bits of knowledge that have easily transferred over to RV life. One of those being how to monitor and improve our power management.
Power Hogs
Of all electrical gadgets and gizmos both Boat and RV, the fridge is typically ALWAYS the power hog. To be clear, I mean out of all of the electrical items we use: laptops, cell phone chargers, electric water kettles, microwave… You name it – out of all of these items, the fridge is always the most power hungry. Sure the kettle and microwave (which we don’t actually use) have a HUGE high demand for a very short period of time. But the fridge is a constant draw. And this constant suck of power, 24/7 is often where the bulk of your energy goes.
Norcold – aka NeverCold
Lolo came with a Norcold tri-power fridge. This means it could run on propane, 110 and 12 volt power. But at what cost? The Norcold drew somewhere in the range of 11amps. And depending on the power source, it may or not be a regulated draw. So, while on the boat the fridge only ran 50% of the time (it cycled on and off approx every 15 minutes), this sucker often ran full blast with no cycling. So 11 amps for 24 hours… No wonder our house bank was shot. (Stay tuned for my upcoming post on the new LiFePo’s!!)
Get to the point…
Long story short? We did our research. After also learning that RV fridges often like to be very, VERY level (like within a 3 degree range), we opted for a marine fridge (which can handle up to a 30 degree tilt) This eliminated the need for propane, as the Isotherm we went with is 12v and 110 – saving that propane purely for cooking. And heat – if we’re silly enough to go so far north as to need heat… The Isotherm draws 2.2 amps, is slightly larger inside yet smaller outside – so we have more galley storage. The list goes on and on of positives! The main one being – it actually keeps things COLD.
Video of the Install
For more info – or just to see how pretty she is, check out our Fridge Install video here.
As always – we really love to have you following along. Thanks for reading, watching and sharing our adventures. We are just about to hit the road, now that the U.S. is reopening. Adventure galore await – including hiking, beaching, exploring and catamaran shopping!
About Author
One Comment