Caravan Fridge

The caravan fridge is probably one of the most important things that you will have inside your caravan. Without a fridge you will have to buy your food daily and never have a cold drink unless you buy it or get it from a friend or neighbour. Buying your food daily can get very expensive and you also find you have a lot more waste as you can’t chill leftovers to have later.

Touring caravans are now fitted with fridges as standard and will run off of one of three power sources, gas, 12v electricity and 240v mains supply. Obviously these won’t all be use at the same time but understanding when to use what power supply is good thing.

The first thing to remember is never to tow your caravan with the fridge being powered by the gas supply. There should be no gas sources available when you are towing at any time as the bottles should all have been turned off. If you park your caravan outside your house when it’s not being used then you could have the caravan fridge running off the mains from your house using a hook-up lead and a 13A adaptor. At most caravan pitches these days you have the option to have your caravan wired up to the mains so again running it room a 230mians supply is the best option.

So you may now be asking if you can have the caravan run off mains at your house and at the caravan site then when would you use any of the other two sources, remembering that gas powered can’t be used when travelling. That last sentence kind of gave away when you would use the 12v powered system. When travelling to and from your holiday or trip destination you will have the caravan fridge powered by the 12volt system. This way the food inside the caravan will still be cool no matter how long the journey is or how hot the inside of the caravan gets. Points you should remember before just stuffing the fridge full of food is that in order to keep the food cold the fridge has to be pre-cooled . Putting cooled food into a warm fridge is a waste of effort as a caravan fridge powered by 12v isn’t working at its best. If you run the fridge off the mains for a few hours prior to setting off this will give the fridge cooling system a good head start and the 12volt system will be more than enough to maintain the chilled compartment on your journey.

OK. So we now know when to use the mains and the 12v power system, but that still leaves gas. When is it best to power your three powered caravan fridge by gas? In all honesty the gas supply to your fridge is mainly used as a backup in case any of the others fail. For example on some caravan sites the power supply may fail or you can’t seem to get the fridge cold enough because they limit the times of the mains supply. On these occasions it may be better to fire up your caravan fridge from the gas supply. Although it can run from the 12v caravan battery the less energy requirements you put on the battery the longer it will last. If you run the lights and fridge and TV and heater and the hot water your 12v supply system so running the fridge amongst other utilities in the caravan will mean you have essential lights and TV for the night.