Refridgerator Problem

[johnsontwins]

We just got back from camping at Lake Jennings in SoCal.  Was 104deg in the shade. Our refridgerator seams to have crapped out on us in the heat.  It was working fine when we loaded up the camper on Friday.  Even added some frozen stuff like meat and hotdogs.  By Saturday afternoon it was warm in the refridgerator.  I checked to make sure I was on AC and the chimney (Don'y know what else to call it) on the right side of the panel compartment was hot.  BTW I have a 2004 Fleetwood Westlake with a Dometic fridge.  By late afternoon I ended up switching it over to Propane to see if that would help.  Sunday morning and it was still warm inside the fridge.  Temp at night acturally got down to 78.  Once we got back home I tried again to get the fridge working on AC and it only will hold a 62deg temp.  Anybody have any ideas on what might be the problem?  Could the high air temp have coused this?  Also does anyone know off hand what the warrenty is on these Fridges?
 Thanks in advance.  Will have to get fixed before we hit Vail Lake in October.

[kathybrj]

I've never experienced temps like the ones you are decribing. But something you may want to look into is adding a 12v fan to the vent area of the frige.

Here's a pic of the one we did:

http://kathybrj.tripod.com/id9.html

It helps to push the hot air out from the back of the frige unit and it does help to keep our frige much cooler than it was before we added the fan.

Not sure on the warranty, off hand.

[Marcus]

We just got back from camping at Lake Jennings in SoCal.  Was 104deg in the shade. Our refridgerator seams to have crapped out on us in the heat.  It was working fine when we loaded up the camper on Friday.  Even added some frozen stuff like meat and hotdogs.  By Saturday afternoon it was warm in the refridgerator.  I checked to make sure I was on AC and the chimney (Don'y know what else to call it) on the right side of the panel compartment was hot.  BTW I have a 2004 Fleetwood Westlake with a Dometic fridge.  By late afternoon I ended up switching it over to Propane to see if that would help.  Sunday morning and it was still warm inside the fridge.  Temp at night acturally got down to 78.  Once we got back home I tried again to get the fridge working on AC and it only will hold a 62deg temp.  Anybody have any ideas on what might be the problem?  Could the high air temp have coused this?  Also does anyone know off hand what the warrenty is on these Fridges?
 Thanks in advance.  Will have to get fixed before we hit Vail Lake in October.

Hi,

We have an Antigua with a larger Dometic fridge that worked ok on gas until we realized it wasn't working at all on AC.  Read the warrantee which was a lawyer's delight. Only good for original owner (not us)and even then it had to 'inspected' every year of the 2-3 year time period-  a total waste.  We are currently checking some web help forums and the Dometic tech said to try and order an AC heater which may be shorted and blowing the fuse.  Wouldn't buy  one of their products again if I had my way!

Mark

[AustinBoston]

We just got back from camping at Lake Jennings in SoCal.  Was 104deg in the shade. Our refridgerator seams to have crapped out on us in the heat.  It was working fine when we loaded up the camper on Friday.  Even added some frozen stuff like meat and hotdogs.  By Saturday afternoon it was warm in the refridgerator.  I checked to make sure I was on AC and the chimney (Don'y know what else to call it) on the right side of the panel compartment was hot.  BTW I have a 2004 Fleetwood Westlake with a Dometic fridge.  By late afternoon I ended up switching it over to Propane to see if that would help.  Sunday morning and it was still warm inside the fridge.  Temp at night acturally got down to 78.  Once we got back home I tried again to get the fridge working on AC and it only will hold a 62deg temp.  Anybody have any ideas on what might be the problem?  Could the high air temp have coused this?  Also does anyone know off hand what the warrenty is on these Fridges?
 Thanks in advance.  Will have to get fixed before we hit Vail Lake in October.

First, you know that you can't just "switch it to propane," that you have to actually light it?

Second, ours works fine after six years, 25,000 miles, and the equivalent of weeks in temps exceeding 100

[jpreiser]

Ours is the same way,,,, Hate it,  when temps rise outside about 85 the fridge temp goes up  , once the frige temp is over 40 I think it is not safe forfood storage. we use it  when we camp in the spring or fall for food storage as long as its cool out. , in the summer it holds sodas and water bottles,

[jbolling76]

I got a camping world sale catalog the other day and noticed they
have a couple different fridge fans in it. One uses 2 D-cell batteries
and says it cuts the initial cooldown time in half. They also have a 3 volt
interior fan but don't have a picture of it in the catalog. Do these sound like
a good idea? I have a Norcold 3 way in my Aero Voyager and  you can't
adjust the temp when its on AC, or at least that's the way I read it.
There is a warmer and colder setting but supposedly thats when you use
propane, and when you use AC it has to be set to off, but that is also at
the coldest setting. But anyway it works or seems to work pretty well. And we've had some hot humid weather here the last few weeks.

[jbolling76]

I got a camping world sale catalog the other day and noticed they
have a couple different fridge fans in it. One uses 2 D-cell batteries
and says it cuts the initial cooldown time in half. They also have a 3 volt
interior fan but don't have a picture of it in the catalog. Do these sound like
a good idea? I have a Norcold 3 way in my Aero Voyager and  you can't
adjust the temp when its on AC, or at least that's the way I read it.
There is a warmer and colder setting but supposedly thats when you use
propane, and when you use AC it has to be set to off, but that is also at
the coldest setting. But anyway it works or seems to work pretty well. And we've had some hot humid weather here the last few weeks.

But also I leave it in the campground all the time and leave the power
plugged in so the fridge stays cold. I guess that makes a difference also.

[mike4947]

I've used the little battery fan in all my fridges once I found them. Keeps the inside at a constant temp. Other wise there were warmer and colder spaces in the fridge depending on what we had in it. The batteries lasted us a season as long as we pulled them when we weren't camping.

[beachbum15697]

I've never experienced temps like the ones you are decribing. But something you may want to look into is adding a 12v fan to the vent area of the frige.

Here's a pic of the one we did:

http://kathybrj.tripod.com/id9.html

It helps to push the hot air out from the back of the frige unit and it does help to keep our frige much cooler than it was before we added the fan.

Not sure on the warranty, off hand.

Hi Kathy, I'm a newbie here and I have the same problem. I saw your picture of the fan you mounted and I was wondering how you wired it up? I picked up a couple of computer fans real cheap (my son works in a computer store) but I'm not sure how/where to splice them in. Thanks in advance!
The beachbum.

[tknick]

Hi Kathy, I'm a newbie here and I have the same problem. I saw your picture of the fan you mounted and I was wondering how you wired it up? I picked up a couple of computer fans real cheap (my son works in a computer store) but I'm not sure how/where to splice them in. Thanks in advance!
The beachbum.

I used the same thing in my fridge.  The fan won't work as well as it could if you don't have a proper baffle.  The air needs to rise from the bottom and be drawn across the fins at the top of the fridge.  If you don't have a proper baffle, air can rise and bypass the fins created a stagnant pool of hot air at the top of the compartment.  This greatly reduces cooling efficiency.

Now, back to your original question, there is already a 12v circuit in the fridge compartment.  If you look around in the compartment you will see where the positive and negative 12v wires are connected.  Mine are connected through a plastic terminal block.  I hooked mine up to it through a switch that I turn on when I turn on the fridge.  I also found a snap-disc switch on the internet (don't ask me to remember where) that turns the fan on when the temp exceeds about 100 degrees.  that's was the fan kits have.  It's a waste of money unless you do a lot of camping in the cool weather.  On all the camping trips I've been on this season, the fan has run constantly (because of high outside temp combined with heat from fridge).

HERE is a link to the fridge mods I have done.  I have actually added a second fan, but the connections are still the same.  As for the baffle, I just used some aluminum flashing and cut it to fit the profile of the cooling fins and made sure it only allowed one path for the air to take.....

good luck
travis

[Monterey]

Our 2003 Coleman Monterey has NO baffle.  It doesn't look like there ever was one in there.  Does anyone know if it's supposed to have one?  

The fridge seems to work just OK.  Never gets really cold in there so we just use it for our water and such and keep the meat and milk in a cooler with plenty of ice.

[mike4947]

Like I have posted before, at least 1/2 the fridges installed in PU are done incorrectly. Incorrectly positioned vents, ineffctive or missing baffle, and missing or damaged insulation can all turn a good fridge bad.
Here's a site explaining about baffling and venting. http://www.rvmobile.com/Tech/Trouble/vent.htm
 
Drop down about 1/2 way on the page to "almost good venting" as our fridges obviously can't have a roof stack vent.

[tknick]

You can make a baffle with sheet metal.  following the guidelines on the venting link, you want to it so the air must enter the lower vent and pass within 1/4" of the unit before exiting out the upper vent.  in my fridge, there was about an inch of space between the unit and the vents.  without the baffle, air would bypass the cooling fins on the fridge and my cooling efficiency was greatly reduced.  after adding the baffle and the fan, I can freeze eggs solid if I want to.  Someone here made a baffle using a light weight disposable aluminum pan they got from a grocery store (I'm sorry I can't remember to give credit where credit is due).  The baffle doesn't have to be anything fancy.  the aluminum pan was a great idea because it is easy to bend and cut.  Any light weight metal will work.

as counter-intuitive as it is, these fridges generate heat to cool properly.  that heat has to go somewhere. if you do not remove that heat from the exterior fridge compartment, it will stagnate there.  then the heat from the fridge has no where to go and your interior temperature doesn't stay cool like you want it.  the baffle creates the proper air flow.  the fan makes sure the cool air that was just heated by the fridge's heat exchanger is removed from the compartment.  this air flow pattern keeps the frige working as best as can be expected.  although not a perfect analogy, if you are familiar with a heat pump, you know the hotter it gets outside, the harder it is for the unit to cool the inside of your house (also the colder it gets outside, the hard it is for a heat pump to heat your house)  this is because the heat removed from your house is being discharged into the usually hotter atmosphere (similarly the cold removed from the house during the heating cycle is also being discharged into the already colder atmosphere).  that is why a heat pump has such a huge fan on the outside compressor.  it needs to move air across the compressor coils to transfer the heat.  the fan in the fridge compartment works in the same way.  the baffle just makes sure the air moving throught the compatment picks up as much heat as possible from the fridge before being discharged into the atmosphere.

sorry for the longwinded explanation, just trying to make sure you understand why the baffle is important and how the fan will make the baffle work even better.

travis

[beachbum15697]

I used the same thing in my fridge.  The fan won't work as well as it could if you don't have a proper baffle.  The air needs to rise from the bottom and be drawn across the fins at the top of the fridge.  If you don't have a proper baffle, air can rise and bypass the fins created a stagnant pool of hot air at the top of the compartment.  This greatly reduces cooling efficiency.

Now, back to your original question, there is already a 12v circuit in the fridge compartment.  If you look around in the compartment you will see where the positive and negative 12v wires are connected.  Mine are connected through a plastic terminal block.  I hooked mine up to it through a switch that I turn on when I turn on the fridge.  I also found a snap-disc switch on the internet (don't ask me to remember where) that turns the fan on when the temp exceeds about 100 degrees.  that's was the fan kits have.  It's a waste of money unless you do a lot of camping in the cool weather.  On all the camping trips I've been on this season, the fan has run constantly (because of high outside temp combined with heat from fridge).

HERE is a link to the fridge mods I have done.  I have actually added a second fan, but the connections are still the same.  As for the baffle, I just used some aluminum flashing and cut it to fit the profile of the cooling fins and made sure it only allowed one path for the air to take.....

good luck
travis

Thanks for the help! I got this all wired up tonight. I first installed a switch to turn off/on the fans, but found it cut the voltage in half, so I put quick connects on the ends of the wires and it runs like a bat out of helsinki. We're going camping in a week and a half, so I'll find out if I did things right.
The Beachbum