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Originally Posted by Scratchy
Lorna,
What kind of 120v fridge did you go with? How do you like it? What would you do differently if anything?
Thanks,
Scratchy
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In the Class C, we have a 3.? cf Haier refrigerator we bought from Lowes. I wish it was bigger. Only slightly.
For the bus, we will install the Aficionado by Haier (4.4 cf) fridge we bought a few years back from Lowes. We have been using it for the food cart storage. We will pick up another small fridge to use for the food cart food and stack the two, one of top of the other. BTW, I don't count the "shelf" freezer as a freezer. You can barely get ice to freeze. I have found that only time stuff freezes is when you don't want it to freeze. I usually stick leftovers (when we have them) on the "freezer" shelf.
We don't keep sodas cold in the fridge. We don't need to keep a gallon of milk in the fridge (I use dry milk and only make up a quart of liquid milk on occasion). A 4 CF fridge is all we need and will give us plenty of cold storage. I have a 4.2 cf freezer (Avanti) in the Class C that we ordered from
http://www.compactappliance.com. I need double that or more. We have been using a 12 CF freezer (kept at my my daughters house) that we store all our excess bread, part of the frozen food for the cart. It will go into the bus. I keep about 1 shelf in our RV's freezer for the food cart meats. If we can stay in towns with a Sam's Club, then we won't need to buy a full weeks worth of food cart food and will not need to have all that food sitting in the freezer. I would like to be able to buy a couple fresh Sam's Club pizzas and keep in the freezer. I would like to be able to cook up a few things in large batches and freeze the excess. Right now, I can keep about 2 weeks worth of frozen food (meats/veggies) in the 4 cf freezer. Not necessarily in the manufacturers boxes which take up far too much space (excess packaging is a problem for full-time RVers.). We generally use big freezers and small refrigerators. Most folks need the opposite.
Currently we have to drive 70+ miles one way at least once a week (sometimes more often) to restock the food cart. So we are freezing most of what we buy and thaw as needed to keep things fresh (no stale buns!). We plan on moving to Roswell at the end of the summer, I hope... depends on what the doctors say about David & his heart/BP situation. We can always drive from Roswell to Albuquerque for his checkups with his heart doctor... however often that will be. This is all very new to us. It's only been a week since David's heart attack. There is a Sam's Club there (we know, we have spent the night in their parking lot three times) that we will use to resupply the cart. I spoke to a campground there on our way to TX to see if they would allow a skoolie (yes) and the food cart (yes also). They offer the same amenities and the monthly rates are about the same as what we are paying here. So, if we change towns, we will have more freezer space allotted for personal use (yippee!)
Our plan is to essentially run the majority of our stuff off the battery bank (no plans for a generator at this time). We plan on using several smallish inverters to operate the TV, DVD player, Freezer, Fridges, micro, the little bit of AC my LP range takes (powers the ignition and electronic clock), the LP tankless water heater (ignition), my computer/printer/monitor. The lights, water pump will be 12 volt. The air conditioner, dishwasher, clothes washer & LP dryer will be on shore power only. Since park power tends to be unstable, the power filtering thru the batteries should be "cleaner". I have had a convection/microwave turn into toast from a series of brown outs in a TN state park. Heat is provided by the bus heat exchanger with an LP/AC fluid heater (old 6 gal RV water heater and system set up to also act as a preheat/heat exchanger for the diesel engine) plus a could of LP wall mount space heaters. This is our plan. It may have to change since we aren't sure how much David will be able to do now. I'm not sure how much I will have to work the cart either which takes away from my working on the bus. He is feeling pretty good. He was allowed to "go back to work" today but I worked today mostly. He did a little work though. We'll see how this week goes.
Hope this rambling helps. You really need to look at how you use a fridge and freezer. I do recommend getting a separate freezer because those little shelf freezers suck unless you only want to have really cold beer. Or really soft ice cream, the cartons don't fit on the shelf unless you are buying single serving size cartons (ie: less than "1/2" gallon" which isn't a half gallon any more). Shelf freezers do not allow you to take advantage of a good buy on meat or frozen foods.
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