Household Fridge

[DearMissMermaid]

My wonderful Dometic fridge went from working perfectly to stinky ammonia death.

I replaced with a household fridge.

My power bills were way over the top and many said it was the absorption fridge that runs the power up high.

I bought an energy star household fridge.

Will I see any difference in the power bill or is that just old wives tales?

Inquiring minds want to know.  8)

 

[NY_Dutch]

An absorption and residential fridge can have similar power draws, but the residential usually has shorter cycle times, making it more efficient.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Agree with Dutch.  In electric mode an absorption fridge runs pretty much non-stop during the day, so it sucks a lot of power  (225-300 watts per hour). An Energy Star,  compressor-driven residential fridge is much better insulated so the compressor typically runs only 20-25% of the time and modern fridge compressors only use about 200 watts (20% x 200 = 40).

 

[Trivet]

No old wives' tales are necessary since the invention of the kill-a-watt.

You didn't say how big your absorption refrigerator was.  I have a 4-door Norcold and recently it's been using 6.5 kwh/day.  Residential refrigerators use about 1.5 kwh/day (from looking at the labels on them and dividing the yearly usage by 365).

 

[DearMissMermaid]

Electric meter readers were by here today so I should know pretty soon though I haven't had the fridge long.

 

[SeilerBird]

When my RV refer died a few years ago in my class A I replaced it with two small apartment refers. My electricity bill went down by $20 a month. Now I have the fiver with a horrible RV refer and I am hoping it will eventually die since my bill went back up.