Community Forums

tommar · 07-20-2017, 10:44 PM

I hope there's nothing wrong with my Dometic side-by-side fridge. It's really hot here in Waco, TX. Getting ready to leave early Saturday for a two week trip to Michigan, so this morning (Thursday) I turned on the fridge using propane instead of 120v because the MH is in a storage place with very limited 120v power. By 6 p.m. tonight, the freezer was down to 20 degrees but the fridge was still a sweltering 75 degrees. We had to take the fresh food back home cuz it wasn't cool enough in fridge but were able to put frozen food in the freezer. It was probably close to 100 in the MH despite being under a roof. Decided to run the jenny so that the AC could help cool off the MH. At 10 p.m., the fridge was at about 65 degrees, not very cool. Freezer was pretty good.
Shut down the jenny and reverted back to propane and went home.

Questions: How long does it take a Dometic to fully cool down, especially when it's HOT? Which mode is more efficient--propane or 120v AC? Or does it matter?

We're leaving in the wee hours of the morning Saturday for Leelanau County, Michigan from Waco. A long trip and even longer if only half the fridge is working. If the worst comes to worst, will live out of an ice chest. We just bought a countertop ice machine from Sam's Club. Tested it and it makes ice really fast. For only $79 it's super! Still would rather have the fridge though.

Will post the results of my trip when I get back home in two weeks.

John Boy · 07-20-2017, 10:54 PM

It can take quite a while. Put some blocks of ice in the fridge.
Dry ice would work but you have to leave the door open a crack to let the gas out.

Marty & Yani · 07-20-2017, 11:01 PM

The RV fridge doesn't work very well when it's 100 degrees or more.

saddlesore · 07-20-2017, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty & Yani

The RV fridge doesn't work very well when it's 100 degrees or more.

That is the very reason I finally bit the bullet and installed a Samsung residential fridge. Yes I have to run the gen set more when dry camping... but...my ice cream is frozen hard as a brick.

Arch Hoagland · 07-20-2017, 11:42 PM

I started my Norcold last month when it was 110 inside the coach. Took 48 hours to get it down to about 35 inside the refrigerator.

I have a tiny fan that I run inside the refrigerator and that helps.

Prechill everything you put in the RV refrigerator.

vsheetz · 07-20-2017, 11:46 PM

Overnight to a day and it should be there or close.

Old-Biscuit · 07-20-2017, 11:49 PM

ONE cooling system....TWO evap coils

Low temp evap coil...freezer section. It has to get down to 10*F BEFORE food section can even begin to cool down. All of the heat absorption capability is going to freezer section......nothing for food section.
Especially when ambient temps are high outside AND INSIDE

By morning the freezer section should be 5*F or lower and food section getting down to 40*F or lower.

Propane starts the the cooling cycle a little bit quicker but once started the electric/propane are basically same in transferring heat to perk tube

marjoa · 07-21-2017, 03:18 AM

Installing bottom & top good cooling fans in the back of your fridge is probably in your future along with looking closely at the top roof venting area and installing some simple baffling to eliminate dead air space.

We're also down here in Texas and yes in this heat these fridges can struggle. Don't put any food into the fridge UNTIL it reaches proper temps and that will help speed things up in the beginning. When it's empty, in storage, in this heat, it can take up to 24hrs. or maybe more.

RV Carl · 07-21-2017, 08:09 PM

I always start my Norcold in the evening at least two days in advance during the summer. I fill it gradually with pre cooled food before leaving and it is good from there.

chuckftboy · 07-21-2017, 08:22 PM

My last coach had a Dometic, 2 door and being down here in Florida, when it got into the high 90's, it took quite some time to cool the lower section. It will help a lot if you can keep the inside of the RV below 80 degrees but you can't do much about the hot condenser air outside. Like others said, might take 24 hours or more.

marjoa · 07-22-2017, 05:27 AM

BTW...I just thought of one more thing. BE SURE your FRIDGE is level for it to perform at it's peak.

Notice I said FRIDGE and not coach. I downloaded a 2 way level app to my iPhone. It's an awesome app. Levels front to back and side to side all in one. When leveling our coach, I place my iPhone on the lower freezer plate in the fridge and level the coach to that. If your Fridge is not level your fridge will probably still work but not well AND if this—fridge unlevel practice—is done a lot, over time it can damage your fridge permanently. Lots of threads on this subject. I level our coach in manual mode.

YC1 · 07-22-2017, 06:03 AM

Our Dometic works fine here in Central Florida. It takes a very long time to cool down and if you let the door hang open it can take a long time to catch up.

You do need need to inspect the eternal fans IF your refer is mounted in a slide. Mine has two fans and had them fail once.

Brockx · 07-22-2017, 06:21 AM

As someone said above blocks of ice will help the process. Before we changed the refer to a residential we kept six empty ice cream containers, filled them with water and froze a couple of days ahead of a trip. Set 4 in the lower area, 2 in the freezer and it was generally ready to go in about 10 hours (overnight) this worked well on a Dometic and okay on a Norcold.
Be sure you put pre-chilled food in not a bunch of warm stuff.

I was always happy with the Dometic (the smaller one) the Norcold 4 door, always a pain somewhere during our trips.