How Does An RV Refrigerator Work?

An RV refrigerator cools your meal just like the home refrigerators do. It makes this possible because of its unique features, like operating on more than one power source. But, how does an RV refrigerator work?

Generally, an absorption RV refrigerator uses heat to send water, hydrogen gas, and ammonia via different tubes, resulting in chemical reactions. These reactions create condensation and evaporation, which help in keeping food cold.

An absorption RV refrigerator depends on gravity to have the ammonia move to its evaporator coils. It’s at these coils where the cooling process effect takes place. Read on this informative post to learn more about how this cooling process occurs.

Working Principle Of An RV Refrigerator

Step 1: Boiling The Ammonia

It’s at the generator where the cooling process starts. Here, the generator refers to a water vessel that contains dissolved ammonia.

The process starts with a burner heating the generator until the ammonia liquid reaches its boiling point.

Note that water boils at a higher temperature than ammonia. As a result, ammonia boils faster, leaves the water vessel, and moves gently into the condenser.

The ammonia vapor starts to cool down in the condenser, forming liquid ammonia. Note that this a pure liquid ammonia because it does not contain water.

Step 2: Cooling Ammonia Down

The liquid ammonia in the condenser flows down to the evaporator, which is a hydrogen-filled chamber. It’s a low-pressure chamber where ammonia expands and cools rapidly.

Besides this, this evaporator plays a critical role in creating the RV refrigerator’s cooling action. Also, in this low-pressure chamber, you’ll find a fan that blows, cooling the air. After this, this cold air then flows through the RV refrigerator.

Step 3: Back To The Start

In this last step, you’ll find an absorber, a device that discharges water trickling through the low-pressure chamber (evaporator). During this process, water makes a uniform/soluble solution with water, but hydrogen remains insoluble.

The water and ammonia solution trickles down in tow. It then dribbles back to the generator ( water vessel), starting the process again.

Can You Use Electricity To Run An RV Refrigerator?

Yes, you can run the current RV refrigerators using electricity and propane gas. The two power options mean that you can keep using your RV refrigerator even in places without electricity. You can use propane in locations without electricity and then switch to electricity when in areas with electricity.

However, recent RV refrigerators can switch between propane gas and electricity automatically. As a result, this feature makes RV refrigerators more convenient to use.

But how will electricity provide heat to the RV refrigerators? Worry no more! The latest RV refrigerators feature an in-built component that produces heat required to keep the process running.

Do RV Freezers Exist?

Yes, the market has several freezers created to fit your RV. A significant percent of these freezers provide excellent features at a relatively low price.

Besides the outstanding features they offer, these freezers also run on either an electricity source of power or propane gas. As a result, with these freezers, you’ll find it easy to keep your hamburger patties frozen and much more.

However, these units tend to pull out more power than RV refrigerators. With the more giant freezers, you can prepare ice cubes within the shortest possible time because of their robust cooling power.

However, don’t stress yourself if you can’t access a high-end freezer. Just use your smaller RV with bags of ice bought from a store. After this, you can use your freezer to keep frozen meals cold.

Keeping Your RV Refrigerator Cool

Food safety remains to be one of the critical factors to consider when it comes to refrigeration. Ensure that you have a little thermometer every time for your freezer and RV refrigerator to confirm that food remains at optimum temperatures.

The optimum temperatures for an RV refrigerator range from 3-4 degrees celsius and zeros degrees Fahrenheit to negative eighteen degrees Fahrenheit for an RV freezer.

Before starting your RV trip, it’s vital to give your RV freezer/refrigerator enough time to get to the right temperature. Mostly, you’ll have to provide your RV unit with up to 24 hours to get to this temperature.

Invest In A Fan

Consider investing in a small fan (battery-operated) if you want to see your RV refrigerator cool. You can place this fan inside the RV refrigerator cabinet. By doing this, you will reduce your RV refrigerator’s workload and keep your meals cooler. The fan makes this possible by circulating cool air.

Also, consider keeping pre-frozen food items and pre-cooled food items in your RV refrigerator. Doing this is essential because an RV refrigerator and freezer uses more energy to cool a hot object than the one it needs to cool down an already cool food item.

Note that your RV refrigerator will always rise whenever you put a hot item on it – this is not a good feature. Ensure the food items you put on the RV refrigerator have already cooled down to room temperature.

Final Thoughts

We hope now you know how an RV refrigerator works. From above, you can see that an RV refrigerator uses a unique working technique compared to a residential refrigerator. Unlike residential refrigerators that depend mainly on compressors, RV refrigerators perform their functions by relying on chemical reactions.