Community Forums

brianseay · 06-27-2007, 07:36 AM

I need some help. My fridge seems to be working incorrectly. Went out over the weekend and the fridge seemed to be working fine on friday but saturday noticed it wasn't as cool as it normally feels in the bottom. The freezer seemed cold enough at the time. Then i noticed the bag of ice that was in the freezer was melting slightly. I swithched over to gas to see if that made a difference, then i put an ice tray with fresh water in the freezer to see if it would freeze. the next morning it had a thin layer of ice on top but not solid at all. The ice in the bag was still the same. The bottom did feel slightly cooler but still not like normal.
Back in march we went to the Grand canyon and my voltage regulator went bad and i did not know it. It messed up my 12 volt system slamming to much voltage. I fixed that and it is putting out good voltage and nothing seemed to be effected. But now i am wondering if it might have messed up my fridge. I have never seen anything like this before. Any help would greatly be appreciated on this matter.

brianseay · 06-27-2007, 07:36 AM

I need some help. My fridge seems to be working incorrectly. Went out over the weekend and the fridge seemed to be working fine on friday but saturday noticed it wasn't as cool as it normally feels in the bottom. The freezer seemed cold enough at the time. Then i noticed the bag of ice that was in the freezer was melting slightly. I swithched over to gas to see if that made a difference, then i put an ice tray with fresh water in the freezer to see if it would freeze. the next morning it had a thin layer of ice on top but not solid at all. The ice in the bag was still the same. The bottom did feel slightly cooler but still not like normal.
Back in march we went to the Grand canyon and my voltage regulator went bad and i did not know it. It messed up my 12 volt system slamming to much voltage. I fixed that and it is putting out good voltage and nothing seemed to be effected. But now i am wondering if it might have messed up my fridge. I have never seen anything like this before. Any help would greatly be appreciated on this matter.

Frankie · 06-27-2007, 08:53 AM

Welcome to the site. We need some more info on you fridge. What brand,model , year. A lot of willing to help posters here.

RustyJC · 06-27-2007, 09:22 AM

Another welcome to iRV2.com!

Also, since you had a 12VDC system upset, does your fridge have ventilation fans in the section behind the fridge? If so, were they running OK before the upset? Are they running OK now? If the fan motor(s) were burned out, then you could expect marginal cooling in high summertime ambient temperatures.

Rusty

John-D · 06-27-2007, 10:59 AM

The first question I have of folks with fridge problems is always this:

"How long since you last performed preventive maintenance upon it?"

And then a list of things you should check.

This list is, however straight out of the owner's manual. And what's more it don't matter much what model you have (with two exceptions) as there are only 2.4 differnt procedures

(1 and 2 below are the same except for 2 issues each) So the 2 are 1/2 and 5, and the .4 is hte a/b/a/b/)

1: Gas/electric (2-way) w/o exhaust fans
1B: Gas/Electric (3-way) w/o exhaust fans (Same procedures save for checking the 12 volt element)

2(a/b) Same as 1 but make sure the fans work

3: Norcold has a new compressor job, Different procedure all together.

Dick L · 07-01-2007, 07:41 PM

We had our Dometic 2862 just about burn our coach down last weekend. Had a heavy amonia smell and later, while sitting in the driveway while we were loading up for a trip, we saw smoke coming out of the side of the coach.

There was a fire in the refrigerator access panel. We hit it with the fire extinguisher and got the visible fire out. The side of the coach was hot so we doused it with cold water and that seemed to cool everything off.

The cooling capacity of this refrigerator had never been great. Couldn't make ice in the icemaker for example. Maybe it was bad from the start.

There is a recall on this model of refrigerator, but our serial number is just out of range of the recall. It is under warranty still so I guess we will be getting a new refrigerator....

Better than a whole new coach.

John-D · 07-02-2007, 04:37 AM

Amonia is one of those fire hazard products, If you have an amonia smell DO NOT USE THE FRIDGE (Unless, of course wife is cleaning with Amonia, but I suspect you know that)

There is a recall on selected Dometic fridges, I do not know if yours is covered. Mine is not under recall (I have checked a few times) and the symptoms you describe are the same ones described in the recall. One of the RV-NET forums has a sticky on the recall... Hold on for a link.

Link to info

That was easy.. Found it in one try. I do not know if you need to register to read the message but if you do it's free

RustyJC · 07-02-2007, 04:51 AM

My Dometic is newer than the ones affected by the recall. I guess my cooling unit didn't know that - it failed anyway. Fortunately, it was running on 120VAC at the time.

So, I'm not sure Dometic has their arms around their cooling unit problems yet. Of course, I've had a cooling unit failure within the first 3 months with a Norcold as well, so that just goes to show you, I guess.....

Rusty

TXiceman · 07-02-2007, 06:06 AM

John-D, ammonia is a hazardous chemical, BUT it has a very narrow explosive range. HERE is a link that tells you of the dangers of ammonia.

In order to get an explosion with ammonia, you have to have an ammonia concentration of between 15 and 28% in air (by volume). It is much lighter than air and will rise (relative vapor density is 0.59 with air being 1.0.

Auto-ignition temperature is 651 dC.

Additional information HERE

So, what this means is that most people can detect ammonia in the air at 50 PPM (parts per million) or 0.0050 %. At 700 PPM (0,0700%) it causes eye irritation and at 5000 PPM (0.500%) it will cause death after a short exposure.

You see that a little goes a long way and you will be out of there long before the 15% lower explosive limit is reached. Once you get to 28% (upper explosive limit) ammonia, it is too rich and will not ignite. Below 15% the mixture is too lean and will not ignite.

Ammonia will not sustain a flame and burn unless it is in the presence of a flame, but it will explode if within the explosive limits.

Ken