My daughter's vintage Lance truck camper had the original fridge replaced with a small undercounter fridge with a freezer section that wasn't big enough to hold a tray of ice when she got it. So we jerked that one out, I sliced up the cabinet to remove the single LP tank locker and shoved a Thomson/Curtis 7.5CF refrigerator/freezer in the hole and strapped it down with two ratchett straps. We bought 4 gallons of Mayfield ice cream before we left TN to bring back to NM (they no longer sell Mayfield ice cream in our town, nor anywhere near us). That's the reason for that particular refrigerator. Plus between a sale and a gift certificate, we got it for about what a little 4CF dorm fridge cost. The fridge is plugged into a 2000W inverter and there's two 100W solar panels on the roof. I do need a second pair of deep cycle 200ah AGM batteries to go with the pair I put up there this summer. The camper is rarely plugged in. I put the fridge on a timer and we turn it on when we leave out to go grocery shopping (we treat it like an electric cooler). When we go camping, the fridge is turned on and it stays on until we get back home and empty the perishables out. The fridge is our biggest power user.
As for a "proper facia", I could fill in the 2" gap above the fridge and the 1/2" to 1" gap on the sides of the face frame with some trim and make it look "pretty", but it's so hot here (triple digit summers is normal), I prefer to keep as much air moving around the fridge as possible. I retightened the straps after the first week and then a month later. After that the straps didn't stretch any more.
This is how I strap down most appliances. Eyebolt thru the floor on opposite sides of the appliance, ratchet strap hooked into eye bolts and ratchet mechanism usually on top of the appliance where I can tighten or loosen as needed. I put wide Simpson-tie type L brackets under the straps on the corners of the appliance case to prevent the straps from breaking down the edges. I used a similar setup to keep the microwave in place (eyebolts on turnbuckles with a metal chain between the two sides). Nothing moves.
The fridge that was in the camper when we got it was just sitting in the hole. Nothing to hold it in place.
An old Class C that I used to have had a 3 way RV refrigerator. Nothing was holding it in place except some thin clamshell trim (this was the factory install). We took the trim off and the fridge almost fell out on the floor. Luckily my husband was bent over in front of it removing the bottom piece for trim and he broke the fridge's fall. I congratulated him on his foresight. He told me to shut up and get the fridge off of him. Remodeling an older RV is such fun!
