Powering the Fridge
 

Since many of you have refrigerators on your Fountains and the boats all came with two starting batteries how do you handle the electrical draw when you are on the hook? It seems like the fridge would flatten the starting batteries overnight.

What condition are your batteries in? If you have a 3.6 cu.ft. Norcold refrigerator that draws 2.8 amp's and a 500 mca battery, you can run the frig for 5 days..

One has to remember that a fridge will not be drawing a lot of power CONSTANTLY unless the door is opened a lot, etc. Doing a quick search on the Web shows most of these refrigerators draw about 150 watts whilst running, which is a 12.5 amp load, (once again...while running the compressor) which a normal deep cycle battery would power for ~20 hours. But when one figures in the INTERMITTENT operation (as long as the door isn't left open!) in theory it COULD stretch out for a few days. LOTS of info out there in the RV/Camping world...but LOTS of variables make it hard to give a definitive answer. Most of the boats I am familiar with that have a small fridge like this will have at least (3) batteries...two 'house' batteries and one starting battery, with isolator circuits to keep the starting battery...uh, isolated.
Very good thread...will be interesting to hear the responses from those actually doing it...with real-world experiences.

I run the fridge on one starting battery from morning until we put it back on the trailer. That is probably 8 to 10 hours on that one battery and never had a problem. That battery cranks the motor without issue. However, I do fully charge my batteries before every outing.

Fridge
 

I have tried to avoid running the fridge unless we will soon be plugged to AC in that same evening. Not sure its worth finding out when the batteries will die. My batteries are not the same every year as they age. The soft cooler with ice has made it easy for me. In cooler weather maybe I will run it DC.

On my 35' Lightning, I installed a 3rd (house) battery to the system with the Blue Seas Add A Battery kit. I wired every house load to that battery (fridge, radio, amps, lightning, etc). I used a deep cycle battery.

It worked very well, and we never had an issue with the house battery going dead while out. I would also turn the fridge on the day before departure (while on shore power) to help it get cold ahead of time.

Terry