Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? April 30, 2016, 09:42:04 am Yahoo Message Number: 160183Our nine year refer is doing something odd. Yesterday, it turned itself off. It happened to be on AC. No check light was on when we discovered it. I started looking for an obvious cause. It was out for no more than one hour, perhaps as short as 15 minutes. Suddenly, it responded to the off/on switch and turned back on.It gets better/worse. For the past two years, on cold setting four, the refer was usually in the 42-47 range. The freezer 5 to 8. After this episode, the temps dropped to 37 and 2 on setting two. Right where we like it.Wondering if the increased cooling is the board in a state dying. Has anyone observed this before.Thinking of ordering a new board, but not sure I could figure out how to install it, before the food gets warm.Waiting out the rain in Kentucky
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #1 – April 30, 2016, 10:25:19 am Yahoo Message Number: 160185If you think it's the control board, buy a Dinosaur Board, install it when the refrigerator is off, while at home. Don't wait for the original to totally fail. The board isn't too hard to change.Larry
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #2 – April 30, 2016, 01:34:43 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160191We believe our fridge is the original 20 years old. We keep thinking it's time! Even Dometic on the last call a month ago wasn't optimistic. Our fridge went to 30° and the freezer to - 20 at least. Couldn't empty the ice cube tray it was so cold. Stuff was freezing in the fridge. Gloomily while shopping for a new fridge I fiddled with our old temperature control stick. Huh. Back to safe. -10 in the freezer. 37 in fridge. Now we run our fridge eyebrow (new last year) full on at 5. How full it is makes a big big difference. We have a fan in there. Two thermometers which I check all the time. Just saying that old fridges are very tempermental. Sandy 96 TK Vermont
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #3 – April 30, 2016, 02:39:48 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160193I would never replace a fridge that works. The newer ones aren't any better just my opinion. in a travel trailer I even went so far as to install a rebuilt cooling unit.
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #4 – April 30, 2016, 04:10:48 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160197"I would never replace a fridge that works. The newer ones aren't any better just my opinion."I won't argue with you on the latter point, Garry. If "better" means "more reliable," I'm not convinced that the new refrigerators are. (Although they are said to be less sensitive to off-level operation than those built fifteen or twenty years ago.)However, there is one reason why someone in Sandra's situation might want to replace a still-working older fridge: to avoid having it fail at the worst possible time, when you're in the middle of nowhere. You have to scramble to preserve your perishable food, then scramble to find a place nearby that will install a new fridge ASAP--at their price and using whatever model they have in stock. I know some of our members have had that experience. It's not fun.It was to avoid that situation that I proactively replaced my still-working, nine-year-old Dometic fridge a few years ago. Would the old fridge have lasted a few more years? Maybe. But I figured that it was going to fail sooner or laterâ€"it was just a matter of timeâ€"so I might as have the replacement done at a time and place of my choosing, rather than in a sudden panic.Andy Baird
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #5 – April 30, 2016, 08:51:44 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160199Just curious, Andy. Did the new fridge fit through the door or did a window have to come out? Ed
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #6 – April 30, 2016, 10:15:55 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160200Our 2003 LD's refrigerator died last two summers ago, the first day of a month long trip. Yes, the freezer was full. Our 1983 LD's refer died at the twenty year mark, one month before the new LD was ready to pick up. After ten years, expect it fail at any time.In all LDs. the refrigerator only fits through the window.Larry
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #7 – April 30, 2016, 10:44:38 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160202Our 2005 RB refrigerator refused to cooperate while on the second month of a three-month trip. We bought a five-day cooler and just worked with that for a month. When we got home, we had the recalcitrant refrigerator looked at. The repairman did some sort of a refrigerator dance and it worked again. No problems since. I have no explanation for this circumstance. There was already a Dinosaur board in it, so that wasnt the solution this time.The point of my story is that it is possible, if not pleasant, to get along without a refrigerator for an extended period of time, so a pre-emptive strike may not be necessary. Admittedly, there was a fair amount of ice procurement during this period, and this taught me that if it happened again, I would buy an ice maker. But overall, it wasnt all that oppressive.One other factor that may play into how one may choose to deal with this situation is that we dont use the refrigerator to keep drinks or water cold. If cold beverages play a part in your life, then being without the refrigerator might not be feasible.Virtual hugs,Judie http://dorrieanne.wordpress.com
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #8 – April 30, 2016, 11:45:41 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160203“Did the new fridge fit through the door or did a window have to come out?â€I wish I could tell you, but I wasn' present while the work was done. The replacement, by the way, is a Norcold N641, which fit the space almost perfectly except for being slightly less tall.I'll add that although the Norcold works pretty well, now that I have plenty of solar electric generating capability, my next fridge (whenever that happens) will definitely be a 12 VDC-powered compressor type, rather than an absorption fridge like the Dometic and Norcold models found in models RVs.Advantages include no danger of fire, no sensitivity to off-level conditions... and of course the fact that I can make my own electricity with solar power, whereas I have to go to a dealer to get propane.Testing out this idea, I have a smaller (40-quart) 12 VDC compressor fridge of this type in my car, powered by a 100 W solar panel and a 33 Ah AGM battery. It draws an average of 15 amp-hours per day while maintaining a steady temperature of 32° F around the clock. Comes in mighty handy on grocery runs, and when defrosting my big fridge. :-)Andy Baird
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #9 – May 01, 2016, 05:08:45 am Yahoo Message Number: 160204As Andy says, the new ones are no longer better. Their components, especially the tubing, are made in China and have been since the late 1990s. It's the tubing that leaks and kills, and it will not matter if you are using gas or electric at the time. Our 2004 Norcold took out our diesel pusher in 2011, and the fridge was running on AC. It could have taken us out too except that we were next door in the house at the time. Oh, and it never gave any warning, nada, zilch. Always kept perfect temp per the thermometers I kept in the freezer and lower compartments.A compressor or a residential fridge is the safest change you can make to your RV living environment. If you can afford to add a little more solar and possibly upgrade your converter, get a small residential fridge. I think at least Whirlpool makes one that is about the right size. They also are cheaper to buy and install than the absorption fridges.Now, here is where people always say that these fires do not happen that often. Yes, they do. They just are not newsworthy, even when someone dies. However, I see where Dometic currently is being sued in a class action. Norcold has long been fighting lawsuits and insurance companies. I am pretty sure they fought my insurance company, but there was no denying what caused our fire because it was put out fairly quickly and the only hole in the RV was the wall next to the fridge and the roof above it. The ceiling had turned into a broiler and everything was charred from waist up. The outside looked pristine except for the big hole. We live six minutes from the local fire station. Out in a campground far from a fire station, the RV goes up quickly and totally and it can be difficult to prove what caused the fire; a situation that has benefited fridge manufacturers, I think. In our 2013 RB, we have the Dometic. Yep. But, we have added a detector that will detect the chemical if it is released into the RV. We have an extra and larger fire extinguisher than what came with the RV. And, we have the RB, which has three large windows and three doors between that fridge and us. I am not fully comfortable with that, but it is what we are doing for now in that we do not use the RV much and we are considering getting a larger RV. We are not looking at anything that does not have a residential fridge. And, we miss the space in DP.Terry Apple
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #10 – May 01, 2016, 05:40:24 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160216Absorption Refrigeration Protection (APR) Company has a great troubleshooting site to help you with your frig. issues. I hope you find this helpful.ARPrv | ARP Control | RV Refrigerator | Dometic Recall | Norcold Recall | RV Fire
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #11 – May 01, 2016, 06:00:33 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160217Terry you are right about RV fires. The above ARP information discusses that issue and sells a safety control that addresses the problem..I just put $4000.00 down on a new 2017 LD and will be installing the ARP safety control when I get it home. I talked to Todd at LD about making this part of the build but didn't get him convinced. I did convince him to install the Smart Plug another safety improvement which is now a standard item on the new LDs.
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? now ARP Reply #12 – May 02, 2016, 06:05:26 am Yahoo Message Number: 160221My experience with installing the ARP is discussed here. The Lazy Daze Companion: ARP Refrigerator Boiler Temperature ControllerNo further episodes with the refer since the single short outage Friday. Guess no one here has ever experienced it, since the thread was changed to replacing the refer.Ordering a new board and will try to install it while on the road.
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #13 – May 02, 2016, 12:59:06 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160232"I did convince him to install the Smart Plug another safety improvement which is now a standard item on the new LDs."That's great news. The SmartPlug is a big improvement in convenience and (especially) safety compared to the old Marinco shore power inlets. I installed one on my midbath a couple of years ago... but ironically, I've been boondocking 99% of the time since then, so have only used it once. Still, I'm glad I have it.Andy Baird
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #14 – May 05, 2016, 11:52:13 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160305What is the instillation of the smart plug?
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #15 – May 06, 2016, 07:41:27 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160320I've uploaded a photo of the SmartPlug as installed on my midbath. You can see the faint circle where I had to repaint because the Smartplug's bezel is smaller than the old Marinco bezel, which left primer exposed when I removed it. And you can see a few scratches where I didn't adequately protect the side panel when scraping and prying off the old Marinco inlet.Andy Baird
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #16 – May 07, 2016, 12:29:52 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160357"What is the instillation of the smart plug?"Installing the SmartPlug inlet is not complicated. The hardest parts, as I recall, were:1. Getting access to the wiring (in a very cramped space behind the toilet in my midbath).2. Removing the old Marinco inlet, which is extremely well sealed to the body. I used thin, flexible putty knives, but it was a hard job. Be sure to protect the area around the inlet with masking tape before you start, or at some point you'll almost certainly scratch the paint.3. Dealing with the fact that the SmartPlug inlet's bezel is smaller than the large round bezel of the old Marinco inlet, so some repainting is necessary in areas that were covered by the old inlet but not the new one. I had Cardinal touch-up paint on hand and was able to do a fairly good job of this, although if you look closely, you can see the difference between the parts I painted and the original finish.Andy Baird
Re: Refrigerator Dying or Reborn? Reply #17 – May 07, 2016, 03:13:55 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160363What is the smart plug and its purpose.. A.H.
Re: SmartPlug Reply #18 – May 07, 2016, 10:26:55 pm Yahoo Message Number: 160367"What is the smart plug and its purpose."SmartPlug is a shore power connection system--an alternative to the twist-lock Marinco shore power inlet and cable that Lazy Daze used for many years, until switching to SmartPlug. The SmartPlug system is designed to be more durable, more reliable, and above all, safer. This review by a marine electrician whose advice I trust explains the reasons.Andy Baird
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