I don't put food in fridge when travelling as I worry about car battery draining when stop for lunch etc. Plus don't know if fridge needs to be switched to van battery setting, if so, does this drain the van battery? Usually carry stuff in coolbox and transfer when we get there. As you can guess, I'm not very mechanical, technical or indeed logical!! Thanks for any helpful advice.
most cars have a split charge relay to feed the caravan 12v. basically this means that it wont power the van unless the engine is running and/or the car battery has a certain voltage.
so you shoudl never flatten the car battery as it will be isolated form the van when you are parked up for any period.
we leave ours on when on the ferry for 8+ hours and it has never flattened the car in any way
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put a 1 litre bottle of water that you have frozen at home in fridge, then you wont need to turn it on at all. Will take about 2 days to defrost and then you can drink it.
Far more effective than any ice pack
------------- if your not living life on the edge your taking up tooo much room
we always put food in the fridge, turn it on at home on 240v at least 24 hours before you set off, place it on the highest setting, place your food in before you go, when you unhook it from mains place it on batt.
Even with stop offs, never had any problems, and still cold when arrive at site.
If your car has properly installed towbar wiring, whether twin 7pin or modern single 13pin socket then fridge will operate on 12v with engine running only, so when you stop enroute for a break & turn off engine the 12v power is cut so car battery will not be drained. Fridge never operates from caravan battery.
What 'Opensauce has said is exactly right so I'm just confirming the facts. However, we always put food in the fridge before setting off but because my caravan is in storage I have to pre-cool it by gas first and then the 12 volt power maintains the cold temperature whilst on the move.
Not using the fridge reminds me of the old camping days but caravans were designed for the purpose of making life easy so you may as well use the facility.
A few years ago our fridge on 12V packed in when leaving Spain, at each stopover we checked the contents and even the products in the freezer compartment were still frozen solid even after 10 hours or so travelling without power, so you need not worry about stopping for lunch, your food will be OK