Solar or Propane for Hot Water & Refrig?

[FastEddie]

I'm not that familar with solar in RV's but do people use it when propane can be used,ie. refer and hot water. (Edited original post so content reflects question for this thread.) -Howard

[howson]

...do people use (electricity stored from solar) when propane can be used,ie. refer and hot water.

Interesting question and worth a separate discussion (your post was originally in another thread). I didn't want the other thread to wonder off the OP's topic.

@DMB or the many other forum members with solar setups will probably chime in.

[Paul & Deb]

I'm not that familar with solar in RV's but do people use it when propane can be used,ie. refer and hot water. (Edited original post so content reflects question for this thread.) -Howard

I use my propane when dry camping for the hot water and fridge. The batteries are used for lighting, television, etc.. Usage will depend a lot on your battery storage capacity and replenishment capability.

[SolarPoweredRV]

I'm not that familar with solar in RV's but do people use it when propane can be used,ie. refer and hot water. (Edited original post so content reflects question for this thread.) -Howard

The answer is simple and complicated, The simple answer is; it depends on how much solar you have and whether the sun is shining, or not.

The complicated answer is; it depends on how much solar you have and how big your battery bank and inverter are. Both your refrigerator and water heater are very hungry electrical appliances, so, unless you have a very robust Solar array, a large battery bank, and a high powered Inverter you should keep using Propane for your Hot Water and Cold Beer.

That being said, I wouldn't try running either appliance without at least 1,200 Watts of Solar, 300ah of Lithium Batteries (600ah of Lead Acid) and a 3,000 Watt Inverter. This is a Robust system, it could be bigger, but this would be the minimum I would try running those appliances on.

Additionally, if you were to run your fridge and/or water heater from Solar, you would only want to run them during daylight on bright, Sunny days, because you will need your battery storage to run the rest of your coach overnight.

If you do have a robust Solar system, then dumping your excess Solar Energy into your Hot Water tank and/or Fridge is a good way to store the excess energy generated by the Solar Array on bright, Sunny days.