Travel with refrigerator

[KHags]

As you are traveling can you run your refrigerator on the battery and will the truck recharge your camper battery<

[Chena257]

I have always run with the fridge on with no problem. Truck does keep camper batteries charged. Pulling rigs for over 25 years and never had a problem with charging or fridge doing it
Bob

[Robbbyr]

If you have a residential refrigerator running off an inverter your truck's stock trailer charging circuit might not keep up completely. Most factory trailer charge connections will only deliver 10 amps or less to the plug/trailer.

If your refrigerator is an absorption unit it will most likely keep up with the 12-volt control circuit draw running the refrigerator on propane. But if you do run on propane while traveling make sure you shut it down before fueling! Many opinions regarding use of propane on the road. I have been doing it for 30+ years and have never had an issue using proper precautions.

If you have a 3-way absorption refrigerator and are running it on 12-volts (for the controls and the heaters) it also may have trouble keeping your trailer battery charged. 3-way refrigerators draw lots of amperes on 12-volts!

[Sundancer330]

My battery goes dead after about 4 hours on the road, this is why we always run on propane, never had a problem.

[Iraqvet05]

Short answer, yes. Running the fridge on gas while traveling down the road is a highly debated topic here. There are some restrictions on this (tunnels, ferries, when refueling, etc) but personally, I've been doing this for 7 years with no problems. Your truck battery should supply enough of charge to your trailer battery to run the fridge all day... If it doesn't, there's an issue with your charging system or that charger isn't making it to your trailer.