Our Open Range has a residential refrigerator.

This is good–we’d planned on being on grid or having our generator available to keep things running for those times we weren’t in transit.

Ice maker, water dispenser, family-sized capacity… All reasons we decided on it rather than a unit with the less power hungry propane Dometic fridge.

Except the last few weeks of off-grid, extended transit periods have had a huge draw on the single G27 battery dedicated to the refrigerator’s inverter. It’s just not taking a full charge anymore.

And the single house battery (also a G27) also seems to have trouble taking a full charge now.

Yes, there’s a generator, but it’s big, not a built-in, doesn’t have a transfer switch, and it’s rather loud and inefficient. Its inconvenience has discouraged us from using it more often to keep things running optimally.

We’ll be looking in the coming weeks at upgrading our battery capacity and also look at some more convenient backup power solutions.