Hi

I would think there is no difference between the way a domestic fridge works and a caravan fridge. They both put the heat out the condenser on the back. The difference is only the arrangement of the condenser. The new domestic fridges build it into the back wall instead of a seperate "radiator".

Which ever the arrangement it is wise to have the back area vented to the outside and some forced air flow with a small fan will improve things on hot days. Certainly letting the heat from the back come inside will make life harder for the fridge and the owner

Jaahn

iana wrote:

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I note that quite a few Nomads are using domestic refrigerators. A point that is never brought up is that these fridges pull the heat out of the inside of the fridge and dump it into the room its in. Caravan fridges duct the heat away out side. This means that on a hot day the fridge is busy cooling its interior and at the same time heating the vans interior.

To counter this I guess you pump up the aircon and there goes all the efficiencies you thought you had!

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This is true if the fridge is not vented, but how much heat is involved?

My Danfos BD35 compressor fridge draws about 25W for less than 50% of the time. With a COP of about 2, that means it moves about 50W of heat, but only half of the time, or about 25W 24/7.

That is equivalent to a small incandescent light globe. I am not going to get too upset about that.

Lousy insulation typical of caravans might add an unnecessary 1,000W or more of heat to the inside of your van when the sun shines.

On the plus side, no holes means no dust coming in.

Domestic fridges generally have the condensers in the outer walls. That has the very big downside that they need to have a 50mm gap to allow cooling. With an RV fridge (either compressor or gas) that space can be filled with insulation which will improve the efficiency significantly and further reduce energy consumption.

Cheers,

Peter