Rv Refrigerator Repair, No 1 Reason Why your Rv Fridge will not get cold http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3uj6oiWfKo Have fun.

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Second failure of our fridge

WestWardHo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Oh darn! So sorry you have started out this way. Could you consider installing a residential refrigerator? Have you called Slade for advice?

Sherry

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

With regards to the idea of a residential refrigerator, I used the "Search" function to find these links. The first two deal directly with our changeover from an RV fridge to a residential. I should point out that our Mobile Suites 38TKSB3 was ordered with an inverter to be installed. I don't think that Dale and Ruth's 38TKSB3 has an inverter, so that might require some modifying.

If one doesn't want to go with an inverter, a residential should keep things good for a few hours (possibly up to 8 hours) when one is traveling. Or, one can have a generator where one can stop and plug in for a while to "recharge" the refrigerator. That last option is not necessarily a good one, just a possibility.

The third link will be one started by Steve Conrad when he was asking questions about the idea. It starts out with some good information being exchanged and ends up being hijacked by a "tangent" idea.

Considering a Residential Refrigerator

The Saga of a Residential Refrigerator

Residential Refrigerator in a 5th Wheel

Terry

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Going back to the original problem. The normal rule is if a particular part breaks twice, it was a symptom, and the part is not the problem. Something is causing that part to fail when traveling, most likely an electrical problem. It could be the voltage is too high, but probably it is too low. Get your multi-meter out and start checking your cord from the truck, first, and also check out your batteries in the 5th wheel. If you have a clamp on multi-meter you can check amp usage. These tests need to be done without being hooked to shore power. Your truck and cord might not be providing enough charging and the first thing that fails is that circuit board.

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill thanks for the advice, Dale will check that out.

Good news - we talked to the service tech who replaced the board back in May, he was able to walk Dale through a reset process after we removed the outside panel. On our unit, in the exhaust flue there's a thermal cut out switch that's an over temperature switch to prevent the propane system from causing an unsafe condition. Dale is thinking this might have been tripped when we were waiting for the ferry, something about sitting on a fairly significant down hill slope for over an hour in the ferry line. That's one theory anyway, we'll see what happens and if it happens again.

So, we're now waiting for the fridge to cool back down and then reload it with our food. Dale was happy to see that his Cold Stone Creamery Ice Cream pie survived the night sitting on top of the dry ice:)

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

BTW, one more comment on the residential fridge, not an option for us. We dry camp at art shows where we frequently only run our generator for 2 hours in the AM and 2 hours in the PM, before and after the show. A couple of these art shows are in Eastern WA / Northern ID in late July / early August, temps in the 90's or low triple digits. Could we find a campground with shore power? Sure, but it would cost more in both time and money, generally the dry camp area for the artists is within easy walking distance of the show and our "commute" is about a 3 minute walk. So for now, in our opinion, we need a fridge that we can run off propane.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Since the circuit board was fine, it is not probably not the same problem as before.

We plan our routes to not take our RV on the Washington ferries if we can help it, they are expensive for large vehicles and the price goes up in summer. A round trip with car, driver and passenger is about $36 for Bainbridge/Seattle or Edmonds/Kingston, the two we take. The RV would be a lot more. That slope sounds like the Mukilteo ferry, but could be the Edmonds one if it is really backed up.

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hi Bill - we were on the Mukilteo Ferry, art show in Langley this weekend. We've calculated the difference between driving "all the way around" and figure we'd spent at least as much in fuel as the ferry fee, plus driving almost the entire length of Whidbey with it's winding, curving roads wouldn't save us any time in the long run. Instead the ferry ride gives us both time to put our Kindles to good use.

This is the only ferry ride we take each year, none of the others have made sense for us considering time and cost, since we lived in the south sound driving around generally made more sense.

WestWardHo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Wow! I'm impressed (again) with Bill's knowledge and with your planning Dale & Ruth! Hokey cow, we have so much to learn. Now we 'gotta' worry about Ferrys! 😄

Sherry

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

WestWardHo wrote:
Wow! I'm impressed (again) with Bill's knowledge and with your planning Dale & Ruth! Hokey cow, we have so much to learn. Now we 'gotta' worry about Ferrys! 😄

Sherry

Troubleshooting I am decent at. Just don't let me do any electrical installing or upgrading. I am a klutz with wires.

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sherry...

they make a small solar powered fan for the refrigerator flue that installs rooftop and keeps the temps down in the chimney area.

I have one , I paid 43 for it on Ebay and did the simple install , it comes with the solar panel

just an idea if you keep tripping the overheat sensor

lmcallis · RV-Dreams Family Member

Just another option that might cause the sensor to trip....I just had the Dometic recall done on my fridge. It's a thermal monitor on the stack and also on the cooling coil. The installer said to be careful about getting water (from driving in the rain or power washing) onto the monitor board on the cooling coil as he's seen many units trip the "breaker" and need to be reset with a service call. So, if it was raining during your drive that may have been part of the problem. If it's just normal sunny Washington, then skip this post. Good luck.

Lance

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks everyone for the tips, will check them out. Haven't been ignoring this site, just very busy this weekend at our art show.

Sherry - there are very few WA ferry routes that will justify the cost of the ferry vs. the drive around, especially when you are already south of the Seattle area. However, a great day trip for you might be to take the Bainbridge Island Ferry into Seattle, wonderful view of the city from the passenger deck. From Elma, it would be a long day trip, but one that could cover a lot of site seeing. If you do that make sure you stop in Poulsbo at Sluy's bakery before boarding the ferry. Oh yes, totally unhealthy, but worth the few extra calories.

Lance - Hadn't heard any issues with water. This drive was in beautiful sunshine, yes, we are past the 4th of July so we're having our very short Western WA summer, that this year actually stared in late June!! Whoo Hoo, we actually got up to 90 degrees. Yes, we were celebrating our short summer. That being said, on one of those warm summer evenings before we left for this trip, we washed the rig. Figured we might as well, while it's still parked in our driveway for another few days. So no, it didn't rain while driving, but we did get it thoroughly wet the day before this trip. However, we did not use a power washer and the fridge was working the evening and the morning after the washing of the rig, so I'm thinking that's not the issue, but then again, I'm not the most technical person in the world. We did check the Dometic recall list and our model wasn't on the list.

We'll see if that happens again after the next washing, at least now we know how to reset it.

Thanks again for all the suggestions and input, it's so nice to have a place to post all our questions as we approach full time status in another 5 days!!! I must say, one of the biggest benefits we've seen so far to this FT life is not having to pack and unpack after every art show, so enjoying the fact that we have everything with us.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Good to know Sluy's bakery in Poulsbo is worth stopping at again. For a few years they were just good, so the locals don't bother going since they remember when it was excellent. There is another bakery down the street to the west the locals go. We are in Poulsbo right now, but busy with family matters and not getting out much. We might not get a chance to walk around downtown at all.

Both the Bainbridge Island and Bremerton ferry are worthwhile for the view of Seattle and if the weather cooperates, Mount Rainier.

Alie and Jims Carrilite · RV-Dreams Family Member

Since this is already derailed, biggrin

Its really not nice talking about Bakerys, Pizza joints, etc that sell melt in your mouth, delicious foods to someone that has celiac disease...

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

I have had some killer snickerdoodle's that were gluten free.

Alie and Jims Carrilite · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thankfully my wife is a wonderful cook!

WestWardHo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Well Dale and Ruth,

Good food and snacks and bakeries aside.....are you on the road yet??

Sherry

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sherry - holding our breath that nothing else goes wrong. If everything goes as planned with the house closing, we pull out of the driveway on Friday, stay in the Puget Sound area for the weekend and then head to the Olympic Peninsula to test out our new bikes on the Olympic Discovery Trail. We have the Lavender Festival in Sequim and then we'll start our trek east to another art show, family visit, then eventually to SD.

Fridge is working great, Dale was happy to see the ice cream restocked!! This time we turned the fridge off before getting in the ferry line and waited until we got home to turn it back on. 5 hour trip including the ferry wait, ferry crossing, rush hour traffic on the east side of the Puget Sound and the temp only went up 4 degrees, not too bad and the ice cream stayed frozen:)

WestWardHo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Ruth Oh I so want to go to that Lavender festival in Sequim but I think our work schedule prohibits! Great news about your refrigerator! Your bike ride sounds fantastic, we explored Lake Quinault (by car, not bikes or I would be deceased rather than writing this 😄) and up the coast to Ruby Beach the other day. Gorgeous!

Sherry

Den-Bev · RV-Dreams Family Member

We too had failures with our Norcold lost stuff, so now just installed a Samsung RF197 in our 5er.
Den-Bev.

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

OK, for the 3rd time we had this error. No long waits on steep hills, no rain (we are in the "rain shadow" of the Olympics between Sequim and Port Angeles and got the same stupid error code. Everything appears to be okay with the electrical connections, at least this time we were able to manually reset everything without having to throw anything away, but still, is this normal?

In August we'll be driving to SD to establish our domicile, I shudder to think how warm the fridge might be when we travel 2 days in a row, ~350 miles per day. Guess I need to make sure we don't have a lot of perishables for the longer road trips.

Fergizmo · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have a Dometic RM 1350 also. A few months ago we thought is wasn't working. We defrosted it would not get cold again. Two days later, it was well again. ???? We attended a Dometic seminar at a Good Sam rally and found out that at 80 degrees ambient temp, every minute the fridge door is opened, it takes an hour to recover the temp lost. Pretty in-efficient. I think our is working ok now, but I really keep my eyes on it. I usually stays at 34 degrees. With normal opening and closing, it goes up to 37 and stays there till morning. Then it is back to 34. We keep the temp setting on 4. It was a bummer and a half, when I googled 'Dometic RM 1350 problems' and found 17 pages of complaints on our model. We also have a small (2.5 CF) apartment style fridge we are carrying ever since ours had problems. At first, I thought it would take up too much valuable space, but we are glad we have it now. It cools down much faster too.

Good luck on yours.

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Allen - thanks for that info. Now we're concerned about next week when we head to the Tri-Cities where I know the outside temps will be hitting close to triple digits. We'll be parked for 3 days at an art show without hookups so will be running the fridge off propane.

Dale was wondering if it would help to hang some sun screen fabric or sun reflective fabric on the outside (breathable, not trying to stifle the airflow that is needed) to help when we're parked in the warmer areas. Have you ever tried anything like that?

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Ruth,

I don't know how effective the "shields" are, but I've heard others speak of doing that. I would think that almost anything that would take the sun off of that area of the slide would help.

Terry

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

taking off the access cover will also increase the airflow going into the chimney flue area

Lonney Wade · RV-Dreams Family Member

Ruth, I have the same 4 door Dometic fridge, I believe as yours, it came with 2 (3 1/8 in. x 1) computer fans in the back of the fridge outside, so I added 2 more computer fans next to the other fans in the back of the fridge up high totaling 4 fans the same size, mine is a slide out so it vents out the side in the back; I also put a computer fan on the cooling fins inside the fridge up high with a dusk to dawn photocell switch next to the fridge light so when you open the fridge the light comes on and the fan turns off, so it does not lose any cold air in the fridge when you open the door, I haven't had any problems with the fridge so far (cross your fingers) it runs nice and cold, hope I could help.

Lonney

-- Edited by Lonney Wade on Saturday 20th of July 2013 12:37:10 PM

Dave Buck · RV-Dreams Family Member

Lonney, Can you tell me what computer fans you used. I need to replace mine and I may add another one. Also where did you get the photocell switch?

Thanks
Dave

Lonney Wade · RV-Dreams Family Member

Dave, I used (80mm x 25mm) or (3 1/8 x 1) inch, go for the highest CFM air movement maybe 60 or 80 cfm, you don't have to worry about the fan noise because it's in the back of the fridge outside, here's a link http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l2/g36/c435/list/p1/Fans-12_Volt_Fans_by_CFM.html?id=jwMjPeBv Here is also a link to the photocell switch, I used this one because It's waterproof and can handle 10 amps, you can here a soft click when it comes on, it works very nice, it took a while to find this one because I'm very fussy with my work projects. I bought one on ebay and it was junk $12.00 what a waste of time and money. http://webosolar.com/store/en/dc-lighting/679-12-volt-night-watchman-photoswitch-photocell-flexcharge.html

Lonney

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Grrr, ok, this is getting really old. We're in the Tri-Cities in WA (Pasco, Kennewick, Richland), temps hit 102 today and we drove here last night from Seattle. Fridge warmed up to 57, finally cooled down, but still having issues, even when parked in the shade. Just got a wonderful gift of farm fresh eggs and some fresh produce from a friend who is an artist with a chicken farm "on the side". Put the eggs and fresh produce in the fridge and temps are rising within the fridge, still need to put in some bottles of water to chill overnight since tomorrow is supposed to be another 100 degree day. Now we're worried about how much more the fridge will warm up when we add the water bottles.
So, if we decide this fridge is just too problematic, any advice on good fridges that can run on both A/C power and propane for RV use? We're seriously thinking we might need to replace the fridge but can't go with a residential unit, need an RV fridge.
Any suggestions???

GENECOP · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have had the Norcold Gas/Electric unit for 3 years now, one control board has been changed, other than that it has worked well. It's an interesting thing with these units but as crazy as it sounds there is an Amish replacement coil for these units, these replacements improve the performance, the ice cream stays colder and overall performance is improved. Many people have this upgrade installed and are very happy with the it.....so if I where to do it again I would put this upgrade in right at the beginning....Why Norcold can't just get it right from the beginning is a mystery but that's the way it is in the RV Fridge world.....

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

While it may not be related to the upgrade units that Gene is referring to, I've heard that some of the Amish refrigerators are notorious for putting off a lot of heat in order to cool the interior of the refrigerator. If that upgrade is something to consider, I'd research that heat factor, because I'm not sure what affect that would have on the slide material as well as the interior of the coach.

Terry

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Talk to http://www.laurelhurstdistributors.com/ in Portland, Oregon. Ed is the one to talk to, if available. They are the PNW distributors for Dometic and Norcold, your only choices for an RV fridge. I suspect your 1350 is not installed properly, probably venting, or has something wrong with it. If nothing else they would know who in the Tri-Cities works on fridges a lot.

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks for the suggestions.

Bill - hopefully Ed will be able to refer us to someone in Spokane or Couer d'Alene, we leave the Tri-Cities on Sunday.

nightsky · RV-Dreams Family Member

This won't help with the mechanical problems with your fridge, but are you aware that fresh eggs do not need refrigeration? If they've never been chilled they can live on the kitchen counter, but if they have been cooled then yes they definitely have to be refrigerated. I've always kept chickens, and during the busiest part of the laying season they often lay more eggs than I can fit into the fridge so they live at room temp for up to a month at a time with no issues. Just remember to turn the carton over once a week or so to keep the yolk from adhering to the inside of the shell.

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Well, update on this. We had the cooling unit replaced while we were in South Dakota. Fridge worked "okay" on the drive to Colorado which took about 2 days. However, yesterday, due to being delayed in Colorado longer than we expected we had to move to a new campground. 8 miles away, and the stupid #$%@#!%$ DM 1350 quit working again. Since May we've installed more fans, checked all the electrical stuff, replaced the circuit board and the cooling unit.

I'm am about 100% convinced that these are just lemons and why Dometic is installing these in new rigs is beyond me. Like Allen (The Fergs), we've found the 17 pages of complaints online, maybe more. Yesterday we stopped at an RV dealership to buy a couple things in the parts department and while Dale was browsing in the parts dept and I decided to check out a brand new, beautiful MH that has the Dometic DM1350 installed. Sheesh, felt like leaving a huge note telling prospective buyers to run away, far, far away.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

My mother-in-law's 13 year old Norcold 1200 died and because of tight clearances she just replaced it with a DM1350. She is not that happy with its cooling, but has decided to live with it. She already paid a restocking fee on the only residential she thought would fit.

Bill and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

H & L have loved their Dometic as I'm sure you have read in the blog. Our Norcold continues to give good service and the ice box stays at zero even in very high temps. Like 100. We may just be fortunate.

That said, H & L sure had great luck with “Leo” in Shipshewana. If we have any issues with ours that is where we are going for fix and repair. We were able to tour his facility with H & L. The guy seems to really know his stuff and how to make refers work. Also works on air conditioners.

http://www.fixyourfridge.com/

Bill

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill Joyce - I hope your mother-in-law has better luck than we've had. Truly, I don't wish these problems on anyone, just getting so frustrated with this whole thing.

Bill & Linda - would love to take it to someone who could fix it, that being said Indiana is out of the question for us, at least for the next 6-9 months based on the art show schedule and where we'll be travelling. Wonder if Leo has any recommendations for repair shops in AZ or CA. Don't get me wrong, the RV tech who replaced the cooling unit did a good job, it was failing and at least things are staying colder once we are set up. We just can't seem to move down the road without an issue. And given that I thought the problem was fixed and wandered into a fantastic grocery store here in Colorado that was having a good Labor Day sale on grilling items, I restocked the freezer with lots of meat to grill. Now I'm wondering how long before the truck will be ready to go and if we'll have time to cook it all before we depart and head to California on a long, multi day trip across parts of the country that are sure to be very warm.

soos · RV-Dreams Family Member

Is the issue you are having still the E3 error code, or is the refrigerator just not working well?

Sue

Lonney Wade · RV-Dreams Family Member

I just found this, I learned so much from this, try to read as much of the comments as you can, it's called

Rv Refrigerator Repair, No 1 Reason Why your Rv Fridge will not get cold http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3uj6oiWfKo Have fun.

Lonney

Steve C · RV-Dreams Family Member

I agree with Bill Joyce about improper installation by DRV. My wife, Evin, and I owned a 2010 DRV Mobile Suite & 2012 DRV Elite Suite. We had ongoing problems with the Elite Suite's refrigerator until the venting behind the refrigerator was changed. Over 75 items had to be repaired or replaced in the first 13 months of ownership. We spent over four months in DRV's parking lot for repairs or at Camping Worlds or DRV dealerships. Many of our issues were installation and/or wiring related and dangerous. For details, go to our blog, www.puppypaths.blogspot.com on the October 22, 2012 post, "The Start of Our DRV Elite RVing Journey". I can't remember if I even mentioned the refrigerator or not, for it was a minor issue compared to some of the more life threatening issues we encountered with our Elite Suite; such as brakes & inverter improper wiring. Our treatment by DRV's owner was horrible as detailed in the PUPPY PATHS post.

In November, 2012, Evin and I traded our Elite Suite and 2012 Chevy 3500, at a loss exceeding $50,000, for a 2012 Tiffin Allegro Bus, falsely believing that we could expect less problems. To date, in the first year, we have spent close to two weeks at the dealership where we made the trade, North Trail RV in Fort Myers, Florida, and three trips to the Tiffin factory in Red Bay, Alabama. We have 10,000 miles on the "Bus" and close to half of the miles are to and from Red Bay for repairs. Most of the issues are installation and wiring related, just as with the DRV. To date, our treatment by Bob Tiffin has been much, much better. Yet today, I have problems with my master bath's toilet, induction cook top, and the keyless door entry; each has been checked several times and each was totally replaced once.

One of the hard lessons I have learned is that many, if not most, RV manufacturers continued to build units with known component issues. After the 2008 economic recession/collapse many component manufacturers went out of business. Those that remained no longer had competition. RV slides are now mainly made and supplied by Lippert and there were major issues with the Schwintek In-Wall slide. In our case, Lippet says it was DRV's installation. Yet, most, if not all RV manufacturers continued to use the slide knowing that there was a good chance the consumer would have issues. Quality control, or lack thereof, is still a major issues. Most want to get the unit out the door and will leave it up to the 'first" owner to find all the "bugs".

Sorry you have so many problems. Needless to say, our RV-Dream with the DRV Elite and the Tiffin Allegro Bus were not what Evin and I had in mind. I feel you pain and frustration.

Steve

rv-vagabond · RV-Dreams Community Member

You might want to check this place out. http://www.dinosaurelectronics.com

Alfred

-- Edited by rv-vagabond on Friday 27th of December 2013 09:13:08 AM