HVAC refrigerator upgrade

[mostad]

I finally got tired of my fridge having a mind of its own when it comes to temperatures. So I contacted JC Refrigeration and order one of their 120 volt HVAC compressor units. The unit showed up very quickly and even though they say 2 people should do this job I ended up doing it all by myself. The instructions I studied up on prior to buying and after ordering it. They were all good and the only real issue was getting the holes lined up in the freezer box. I did need to move the gas line over 6-8 inches and then cut a roll the bottom plate up, but it was all extremely easy.

I bought a Victron 800 watt per shine wave inverter to power the fridge while driving down the road and when I have no hookups. My camper came pre-wired for a generator but I ordered it without the generator, however the transfer switch was in place. I at first tied into the auto transfer switch but later learned it takes power, about .5 amps to activate it. So I ordered a manual transfer switch and isolated just the refrigerator circuit.

I do have about 340 watts of solar and 4 six volt Interstate batteries. When running on the inverter I use about 62 amp hours overnight and it dropped the batteries to 88%. So in order to boon-dock I may need to add another 300-400 watts of solar to be comfortable without pulling out the a Honda generator.

[DarylB]

Was there any particular reason you didn't just go with the 12v compressor unit?

[mostad]

Was there any particular reason you didn't just go with the 12v compressor unit?

Yes, for a few reasons. 1st I felt that I do more shore power hook ups then boon-docking, when I go full time I’ll be mostly tied to power. 2nd if your 12 volt wiring isn’t big enough you can run into issues mine was not, my fridge is in the slide so getting a larger wire ran would be difficult. 3rd they say that the 12 volt compressors run just a little slower, they still work good but take a bit longer to cool, which will take more battery to get the same job done.

[orbiker]

What did you do for an evaporator and condenser coils? Were they supplied too? KEN

[mostad]

What did you do for an evaporator and condenser coils? Were they supplied too? KEN

Everything you need to make the swap is included. All you need to supply is the muscle to remove your fridge and put it back in, plus the tools. I did buy a different fitting for the LP line as I had a tee I wanted to remove.

I did have a few questions for them that I emailed and they responded very promptly.

The nice thing about going this route is I didn’t need to change or modify anything to put a residential refrigerator in. I did look at doing this and almost did it, but I had some clearance issue with the slide in.

So far I’m very pleased with this upgrade, fridge stays in the 30’s and freezer in the low single digits to below zero. There is a “fin fan” that comes with it that attaches inside the fridge to keep ice from building on the fins, well it is a bit noisy, I see me turning it off at night while sleeping.

The attached photo is of the old unit that comes out and you replace everything with a new set up. The other photo is the back of the fridge after the old set up was removed and cleaned up

[traveldawg]

Nice job. Nice write-up.