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We are looking at possibly going with a 20 cf propane fridge in the new place. I was just curious as to others experience with these as far as cost to operate, exhaust and smell?

Very safe and efficient. Look at all the RVs that have them. They're most efficient when level. Very important.

20 cf is Enormous; most RV models are like 6-8'.

All the ones I've had worked great. The combustion area is supposed to be vented to the outside(for safety reasons; if something goes wrong.)

One aspect that is a little different from a regular fridge is that the cold comes from a metal plate. Most I've seen don't have a circulation fan to assure even distribution of the cold, so it is possible to freeze stuff that is put real close to that plate(in the rear below the freezer section.)

RV supply places sell little battery-powered fans to help with that; I've never used them as it's usually not a big problem.

They don't use a whole lot of gas; a 20lb(5 gallon) tank would last me a week/10 days including all the cooking, hot showers, etc...

How a Propane Refrigerator works : Absorption Refrigerator : Propane Gas Refrigerators : Ammonia Refrigerator : WareHouseAppliance.com

Oh yeah....something else we didn't mention. They're expensive as you can see with the link that good ol' Marty put up there.

I have the opportunity to exchange some work for a 20 cf model and I am thinking of taking their offer. The fridge can be located in the pantry area with an exterior wall so it can be vented outside. They tell me it uses about 10 gallons a month of propane so I am doing a cost analysis right now to see how much it will save me on the setup and cost of the rest of my system...

The small battery operated circulating fan mentioned above increase efficiency beyond belief and the battery last for weeks of continues use.

We have a small Servel and we don't really have any complaints with it. If there's a large fluctuation in temp from day to night, we have to adjust the thermostat down to keep things from freezing during the night, then remember to turn it back up before the afternoon. It always seems to keep cold, even during the hottest weather.

We use about the same amount of gas as Cortez, but a big fridge will probably use much more.

We vented mostly to remove the heat, but I'm sure there's probably a safety issue also, especially if the flue gets dirty there could be a CO problem. If you are going to vent it, take the vent pipe all the way to the roof. We made the mistake of venting through the wall. Any time there's a hint wind on the side where the vent is located, it vents inward. Blocking the wind doesn't work, it's some sort of pressure differential thing. When we took the vent pipe to the roof there were no longer any problems.

Another thing I'd consider is buying a propane detector/shutoff valve. We installed the detector behind the fridge. The detector is wired to a solenoid at the propane bottle. If the detector senses a leak it shuts off the gas at the bottle. Any time you have an appliance with a flame inside the house you should also install a carbon monoxide detector (some propane detectors also monitor CO).

Now that said, we are tired of messing with propane. We decided to add additional solar panels and batteries to run an electric fridge.

I have heard that complaint about temperature fluctuations affecting performance. The good news for us is that where we are at the temperature seems to vary little from day to night, season to season so hopefully that shouldn't be too big a concern...

Those of you that have propane refrigerators, what brand are they? Any over 15 cf?

Are you sure they make them that big? Wouldn't they smell?

Propane refrigerators must have been around a long time because I remember we had a propane refrigerator when I was a young boy in Colonia LeBaron Galeana Chihuahua Mexico forty some years ago. We had no electricity so it had to have been propane.
All I remember about it was that it kept the milk cool for our wheat mush every morning which I hated. Hahahahaha.

Originally Posted by Gruñón

The small battery operated circulating fan mentioned above increase efficiency beyond belief and the battery last for weeks of continues use.

Will this work on a small RV 5 cf frige? I built a case for one in my baja house and it works fine in the cool months of the year but summer it only gets in the mid 40's...48 too! This frige only gets fired up about 6 to 7 times a year for a week visit. The freezer in it works great! I bought it as a "rebuilt" from a trailer supply house in El Cajon. Been using it for about 5 years now.

Originally Posted by Gruñón

I have used the fan in 30 ft motor homes and 15 ft travel trailer and it worked wonders no matter the size of the firdge.
Any added circulation is a plus.

Excuse me for being dump, but are you putting that fan on the outside fins or the inside fins??......thx
I'm guessing the outside ones.......thx again!! B

There is a fan that is 9v battery powered that you put inside the fridge to circulate the air for eveness and efficiency and then there is an external fan that hooks up to 12v that you put so it blows over the coils to expedite cooling. I just purchased both and will be putting them to work Monday evening when I get to BOLA.
My buddy uses them on his desert journeys and says they work wonders.

Looking forward to hearing how they work...

Short explanation - A gas (often ammonia) is compressed by heating it. It can be heated by propane or electricity in many RV type fridges. The heated gas is pushed thru a orifice to produce the cold that releasing of compression always produces. It then circulates back to the heat chamber where it does it all again - and again - and again.

This method of compression does not produce the pressure that a motor driven compressor in the usual home fridge produces, so it can't achieve the real cold temps it hot weather. My experience is that if the propane ones produce a 60 deg. drop from ambient temp. it's doing real good. The fan to remove the hot air from around the cooling unit helps as well as the fan to circulate the inside air. The cooler the location that the fridge is located, the better.

Just got back from BOLA and the little battery powered fan made a significant difference in how evenly our fridge cooled.....a good, inexpensive investment.
As far as the external coil fan.....well, time running short and the simple fact that I "misplaced" the installation instructions gave me all the reasons I needed to not actually have to discover how to install it correctly......I just wasn't sure which junctions I needed to tap into for the on/off and other wires.....two wires, easy......it was the other two I wasn't so sure about.
I wish I had but it'll have to wait. I can't see how it wouldn't work given the heat production in the back of that thing.
I will say this,though, it never got too hot and humid while we were there.....like it is right now.

We have been using a NorCold Propane fridge now for about 4 months and have learned a couple of things:

1. They use very little propane (Still on its first 40kg tank)

2. They make less noise than an electric model

3. They work just as well as an electric in our climate where we live


One additional discovery - Fridges are a lot like garage cabinets. The more room you have the more stuff you will find to store in them. The NorCold model 982 we have been using is plenty big for two people IMHO...

I have one in my San Felipe house; I only use about a gallon a week with mine. They need to be vented to the outdoors... dangerous if they're not and will probably smell a little too. Just follow the manufactures instructions and you'll be OK.

If your off grid solar you may want to look into an electric refer by LG... the manufacture claims it runs at 1.6 amps. You could run one with a 1000 amp hour rack no problem.

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

We are looking at possibly going with a 20 cf propane fridge in the new place. I was just curious as to others experience with these as far as cost to operate, exhaust and smell?

Originally Posted by bajablawndi

I have one in my San Felipe house; I only use about a gallon a week with mine. They need to be vented to the outdoors... dangerous if they're not and will probably smell a little too. Just follow the manufactures instructions and you'll be OK.

If your off grid solar you may want to look into an electric refer by LG... the manufacture claims it runs at 1.6 amps. You could run one with a 1000 amp hour rack no problem.

We're still using our Servel propane fridge, no problems to date. We only use the fan inside when the weather gets hotter. Can't tell how much gas it's using because we also have a propane water heater.

We bought a Whirlpool resource saver refrigerator to install at a later date. Monitored it with a Kil-O-watt meter before we left the U.S. . Uses between 1000 and 1100 watts per day depending on temp. Now if I could finally finish installing the additional solar to run it.......