Below is from a recent article I came across from a Buckeye Bounder member about their 4-door Norcold refrigerator catching fire. I was quite concerned since our Bounder (also a 2006) has a 4-door Norcold refrigerator.
Thetford's recall page lists several models/serial numbers involved in the recall. The one for our model (1200LRIM)does not list our serial number. I contacted Thetford about this recent incident & they stated they "do not have any known issues with our current model units".
Since their statement doesn't eliminate the possibility of a problem, I thought I'd post this as a "heads up" to check on your Norcold 4-door refrigerator.
Lori-
P.S. Also, the article also made reference to a 2005 Gulfstream that its fridge caught fire, too (but I didn't post it here).
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On November 2, 2008, two days before leaving
for Florida for the winter, we had dinner with ‘the kids’ and their families. Fifteen minutes before dinner my grandson went out to the family car to get something and came running back in to tell us smoke was coming out of the barn where we stored our 2006 38N. The Norcold four door refrigerator had caught fire, destroying the Bounder, the 22 foot boat parked next to it, and the 32 X 56 foot barn.
The Bounder had been parked in the barn, which has a level concrete floor, with jacks extended using the ‘automatic’ mode, so it was level. The refrigerator was in the AU mode and was running on electric all week. (Note: The barn
had 50amp service.) At no time during the week
or on the day of the fire did we lose electric to the barn. In fact, after the fire was out the firemen asked me to turn off the electric.
When we found the fire we could tell the barn
was cooling down and the firemen said when they
went in the only flames were some rags I had
washed and put on a plastic table to put away
later. They did find some hot spots in the various parts of the Bounder but they told me the barn was air tight enough that the fire burned itself out due to a lack of oxygen. The Bounder had a hole burned through the side that was 4 feet wide from the floor to the ceiling where the refrigerator stood and the roof was gone from the driver seat all the way back to the end of the Bounder and the inside was gutted.
When the fire investigator came three days later he walked into the barn and said, “This is a nobrainer. This is the third Norcold refrigerator fire I have investigated in an RV this year and this looks identical to the other two.” He indicated that in the other two cases a detailed inspection found leaks in the copper tubing welds. He took a lot of pictures of the barn and checked polarity on the 50amp service and said all was fine. He told me there was nothing I did to cause this fire and they would notify Norcold.
The 38N was our second Bounder and we have always left the refrigerator on through the summer since we used it every other weekend or more and the last two years we have wintered in Florida so the frig was on year round. We will miss our 38N, but life goes on and so will we. In fact we have just purchased a 2008 38V Bounder so we can continue to enjoy our life of Boundering when possible.
Richard & Pamela Diekmann, BOA 4427