AC only fridge?...bad ideal?

I have been reading about both pros and cons about going with a 3 way or a 2 way fridge. I am in the process of remodeling my RV and the previous owner had installed a very nice fridge but it is only powered by 115VAC. Being that the fridge is just too nice to toss and considering the cost of replacing with a 2 or 3 way just seems like a waste of money to me. So my plan is just to keep the nice fridge I have and upgrade the RV for less money. Harborfreight has a 45 watt solar panel for a fair price. My plan is to install a power inverter to run the fridge and some other AC things like a TV, DVD stereo and other small electronic equipment but mostly for the fridge. The solar panel will keep the secondary house battery charged when not plugged into shore power in between short stops when I run into a store or stop for fuel and other times during the time it takes to get the RV set up. When I am driving down the road the RVs charging system will be keeping the battery/inverter going. Do you think this is a bad ideal?

The price of a decent size fridge in 2 or 3 way configuration is like $700-1,000 bucks!

Your going to be very disappointed with the output of that solar panel,,running the RV engine to recharge the system while camped is going to be expensive. (Or you can pole to pole camp, not my idea of full use of the RV)>>>Dan

Many high end rigs now come with a residential (electric) fridge.  Now that electric, compressor-driven fridges have become quite efficient, it's a viable and popular choice for an RV.

But don't count on that 45 watt solar panel for many amps. It's 3 amp max output and that's in ideal conditions. And it is not for direct power - it needs to accumulate the charge in batteries. You need a couple of extra batteries if that fridge & inverter needs to run for very long.

Thanks Gary, my plan was to run another set of batteries using an isolator from the charging system the isolator will keep the RVs system at 12v and switch charging to the low battery autoaticaly.

What is the power consumption of that fridge?  Is it self-defrosting?  If so, that will greatly increase it's power demand.

I suggest getting a Kill-A-Watt power monitor, plug the fridge into it for a couple of days and measure the average amount of power it uses over a 24 hour period.  You may have to use an extension cord to put the monitor in a position where you can read it if the fridge outlet is hidden.

The motorhome's charging system will easily power it while you're in transit, over short stops for lunch, etc.  If you add an extra battery or two to the house bank you may even be able to boondock without hookups for a day or two - it depends on the size of the batteries and how much power the fridge uses.

You can figure out how many batteries you need, whether you need to supplement them with a solar panel, etc. once you know how much power the fridge uses.

I had an apartment size, manual defrost refrigerator in my Arctic Fox and found a pair of golf cart batteries would power that and my other electrical needs for about two days before needing a recharge.  I didn't have any solar panels, instead when I was boondocking I charged them by running a Honda EU1000i generator for a couple of hours each day.

One thing to be aware of is the starting surge required by the compressor.  You need an inverter several times larger than the running draw of the refrigerator to handle the surge, and if the batteries get too low they might not be able to supply enough power to start the compressor.  If this happens the inverter will shut down from low battery voltage when the fridge tries to start and you won't have any power until you reset the inverter.

to the OP

Have you looked at 12volt refrigerators?
You could run one of those off of 2\3 solar panels and be safe. I saw it done in a magazine shortly after we picked up our rv

I think a refer that runs on propane is worth it's weight in gold to any RVer. Unless you will be hooked up to power that will never quit all the time.