Community Forums

Ms G · 07-06-2015, 02:36 PM

My neighbor had the same problem last year camping at 10,000 feet he has a Rockwood with Dometic refrig. We have always camped at higher elevations with no problem with our older campers with the frig on propane. He says they told him they fixed it. Guess he'll find out in a couple of weeks. We just bought a Rockwood also with the same frig. hopefully we won't have the problem.

Waiter21 · 07-06-2015, 02:45 PM

Whip - Is the flame blowing out???

As others have mentioned, your burner may be running to rich or may even be blowing out because the mixture is to rich to support combustion, 12 inches is a tiny bit high. I think most appliances are rated at 11inches. I would say if you hang out at the higher elevations, you may want to turn the regulator down to 10 inches.

If your interested, here is a neat little manometer that I built to calibrate airspeed sensors.

I FLY EZ

.

Tony Lee · 07-06-2015, 07:18 PM

We have been at 11,500 feet for three weeks and the Dometic fridge works normally. So do the furnace and HWS. All have slightly noisier flames though.
Propane generator won't run, and neither can I. Best I can manage is a slow walk.

Whip · 07-07-2015, 06:58 AM

The Arctic Fox dealer that we stopped at claimed that the regulator set at 12" of pressure should work at any elevation. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, so we're still searching for answers.

It is very sporadic, and does occasionally work, but we are constantly needing to turn it off and on hoping it catches. Some days if will work a few hours, other days not at all and we need to run the generator. Often when it is trying to light you can heat it make repeated attempts with a loud "whoop" sound as it ignites the gas but it can't seem to establish a flame.

I am a bit hesitant to mess too much with regulator pressure against the advice of the manufacturer and dealer. I might have to think about making our buying a manometer. But a propane technician I am not, and am leary about doing something that could be dangerous. I sure wish a service technician at a dealer could offer some solid advice.

The frustrating part is that Norcold itself had no suggestions. No way to adjust the flame, and no alternate orifice is made for this unit. There only suggestion is to use electricity when camping above 5,500 feet. That pretty much eliminates almost all state or national forest campgrounds anywhere in the west.

The best solution I can come up with so far is to eliminate any unit with a Norcold refrigerator from consideration on our next RV purchase.

rideandslide · 07-07-2015, 10:31 AM

Your making me want to head to the mountains to see if mine will work, but, being in southern Georgia it would be quit a trip !!!

oatmeal · 07-07-2015, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whip

Do any of you camp at 9-10,000 feet with a Norcold Refrigerator? We have talked to many other campers up where we are, including some with Arctic Fox trailers and Norcold refrigerators. Nobody else we have found seems to have this problem.

We have a Class A, not a trailer, with a four-door Norcold (1200) in it. We've spent several weeks at a time at 9,000 feet (Crested Butte and Frisco, multiple times for each) and never noticed any malfunctioning.

Our moho was manufactured in the Los Angeles area, so there's no way anything was modified for high altitude performance. And the refrigerator is not in a slide, in case that makes any difference.

Whip · 07-09-2015, 05:18 AM

Success!!!
I talked with Northwood customer service and was given a direct contact number for a Norcold technical rep. When I talked to him he suggested a couple of things to try, one of which was the distance of the ignighter to the orifice, saying that it should be 3/16". I checked mine, found it to be much closer, adjusted it to 3/16, and voila! We spent out last night in the mountains at 9,400+ feet and the refrigerator ran flawlessly on propane.
It took some digging, and not until our last day did we find an answer, but I am just so happy to have it figured out. We are already looking forward to our next western trip!

rideandslide · 07-09-2015, 05:56 AM

GREAT !!!!! Will keep that in mind .

franknj · 07-09-2015, 05:37 PM

+1 for norcold - they take their share of beatings but glad you found a solution. Still a great feature to run on propane or electric.

Jim_HiTek · 07-10-2015, 07:59 AM

+2 for Norcold.

Hah! I thought so. In 11 years of lurking around RV forums, I'd only rarely heard people complaining of the refer not working well at altitude so figured it must just be an adjustment. Good for Norcold for the spot on help.

oatmeal · 07-10-2015, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by franknj

+1 for norcold - they take their share of beatings but glad you found a solution.

If you ask me, the Norcold rep who told the OP that if he's above 5500 feet his only choice was to use electricity could use a beating.

Ms G · 07-19-2015, 11:13 AM

My neighbor sent us a text last night they are camping at 7500 feet and Dometic refrig not working. That is after the people at the service center said it had been fixed. So now I guess we will have to take a trip to camp in the mountains to see if ours will work.

redwing10 · 07-27-2015, 05:56 PM

I have a Arctic Fox and have been at 9700 ft for the last 21 days here in CO and have had no problems with Ref on propane. I have copy and pasted the solution and know will check Ref when i am back the mile high city of Centennial, CO.

I hope all goes well on your next trip to the high country.

The Sequel · 08-14-2015, 07:29 PM

Interesting. We've travelled all through Colorado and camped the mountains of northern AZ in our AF with no problems. Hope this is a permanent fix for you.