Fridge in a Slideout

[moisheh]

We are looking for a unit in order to resume our Mexican a unit with travels/ Although I hate propane fridges a rewidential may now work for us. Many times we will be bondocking. Or the power in the CG is either not working or pumping out either low or high voltage. One unit has an 8 cu ft. Dometic. We have traveled Mexico with a 8 cu. ft. fridge Bigger would be better. The other unit I am looking at has the infamous 1200 Norcold. In the past we traveled Canada and the USA with that fridge. Both were in Bounder DP's. The 2002 gave us trouble. Often the temps would rise for an unknown reason. The 2005 had the same fridge but I had installed the fridge warning system as well as an extra fan. Actually worked great. One of the units I am looking at has the fridge in a slideout. I remember in our early days of Rving that 2 wall vents is not as efficient as a roof venting system. I suppose I could have one fan at the bottom and maybe another near the upper wall vent. I do not want to install a 12 volt fridge or a residential unit. At one time one of those Amish units was supposed to solve all fridge problems ( other than a fire!). Is that correct. Advice appreciated.

[Gary RVRoamer]

The Norcold 1200 has two fans as standard equipment, up near the top, but sometimes an additional one down low can be helpful. The 1200 is actually a fine fridge, but poor quality installation too often lead to cooling problems. Especially in a slide, where limited space and the side vent can be problematic. And I would definitely add a Fridge Defender unit for safety as well as better fridge management than the factory controls, plus controls for additional fans.

[153stars]

Many times the the air baffle for a side vent or even a roof vent hasn't been done properly. It's even more important/necessary for side vent.

[moisheh]

Thanks.

[NXR]

The pic is from our Norcold 1210 in a slide after the factory reinstalled it properly (missing baffles and missing rear sealing) and after I added the ARP kit with fans. It was 85 F outside with the direct sun on the slide containing the fridge. The TEMP setting was 3. (While this was a new JC Refrigeration cooling unit we had the same performance with the Norcold cooling unit before it failed.)

The JC Refrigeration cooling unit is also known as an "Amish" cooling unit simply because of where they're built. It definitely is heavier and seems built better. The off-level limits are the same, 3 and 6 degrees.

Two hours after power-on the freezer is below 32 F when the outside temp is in the 80's. Six hours after power-on the fridge is 39 or 40 F. That's with the Norcold or JC Refrigeration cooling unit.

I also added the ARP Fridge Defend with their two small internal fans and two external fans, one at the bottom and one at the top. Prior to adding the ARP fans the performance was OK but the fans made a big difference, as did getting it installed properly.

The two small internal fans allow the interior to cool down much faster after a door is opened or food is added.The two external fans allow the fridge to maintain consistent temps in all manner of outside temperatures and allow the TEMP setting to be knocked way down.

Prior to being reinstalled properly, setting the fridge to 9 would not keep the freezer much below 30 and the fridge would creep up close to 50 in the afternoon. After just the re-installation we could set the fridge to 5 or 6 and have acceptable temperatures all day. After the ARP fans were added we normally run the fridge on 2 or 3 all the time.


IF that is the original Norcold it may be nearing the end of its life. People say an RV fridge has about a 15-year life.

Be darn certain to check to assure that the Norcold fridge recall was installed. The 1200 series built between 1997 and 2010 had a propensity to overheat, catch fire, and burn the RV down in about 10 minutes. The recall did not fix the design deficiencies. Rather it added an overheat sensor that cuts the fridge power off if the boiler hits about 800 F (not a typo).

https://norcold.com/recall-informati...-dec8f104-b62d

Hope this all makes sense.

Ray

[moisheh]

Thanks. Yesterday I did some more reading on the Amish mod and the ARP. If I buy that unit definitely do all the mods. If my usage was diferent I would install a residential unit.

[Gary RVRoamer]

The Norcold 1201 in my '04 American Tradition performed marvelously with just the standard equipment, easily keeping 0 or less in the freezer and 37-38 in the fridge box. Ice cream stayed hard and beer cold! It could maintain those temps at ambients up to 100 F, but began to warm a little above that.


I worked with Paul Unmack back when he was first testing his ARP module and ran it in diagnostic logging mode on my Norcold for 3+ months. It showed my Norcold working exactly as Norcold said it should (though that was a mix of good and not-so-good). Later some further tests showed that other Norcold 1200 installations were not so lucky.

[powercat_ras]

I have 2015 Vista 27N with a 8 cubic ft Norcold in a slide. When the upper vent is in the sidewall vs. a roof vent it works much better when is there is a curved baffle to help direct the air rising thru the space at the back of the fridge towards the outside vent.
I had to add this to my Winnebago, they did not do it at the factory in spite of the Norcold install instructions saying to. I just made it out of thin galvanized metal sheeting and metal duct tape and it has lasted for 7 years without any maintenance of it needed.

You can also get high quality thermostatic 12 VDC fans that attach to the back of the vent grilles that help with air movement as part of a Fridge Defend propane refrigerator protection system with integrated fan controller from arprv.com that will ensure the fridge works well even if that side of the RV is in full sun or outside temps are very hot. I also added this to my Winnebago to augment the Winnebago installed 12 volt thermostatic cooling fan mounted behind the refrigerator.

The last thing is to do nothing to reduce the air flow, including putting bug screens on the vent grilles. If you are worried about wasps getting into the air space behind the refrigerator then a cat flea collar laid in the space behind the bottom vent will keep them away, just replace about every 60 days.l

[avfordguy]

The death of any absorption fridge is no or improper airflow, too much airflow from the bottom cools the boiler unit, too little airflow across the condensor coils is also not good, I have seen the fan controlling "snap disc" fail, sometimes they work ok at lower temps then as the fridge keeps cooling the condensor temp raises and the snap disc will fail, seen some that the snap disc shorts to ground.

[NXR]

Originally Posted by moisheh

Thanks. Yesterday I did some more reading on the Amish mod and the ARP. If I buy that unit definitely do all the mods. If my usage was diferent I would install a residential unit.

If you can get to their factory near Elkhart, IN you'll be assured the new cooling unit is installed properly. A fellow with a 2008 DP near us this winter had the cooling unit leak on his original Norcold four-door. He had a local highly-recommended mobile tech install the JC Refrigeration propane/electric unit.

Then ours failed a week later so we had the same company install the same cooling unit. But first I read the installation manual and asked the DP fellow if I could look his over. When I did I found a couple of errors.

The first is that the required Norcold vertical baffle at the top vent needs to be removed but it was still there. The second is that JC requires a fan be installed at the top vent but it wasn't there. The third was that the Norcold evap cup needs relocated but it still needs to be against the metal stack to conduct heat to the evap cup to help evaporate the water. The mobile tech simply mounted it in the middle of the fridge so after a week the water started to overflow.

When ours was installed I discussed those issues with the mobile tech and I watched every step. They followed the directions, which it turned out they had never read, and then they went back to the DP and corrected those errors.

So it all turned out OK for both of us.

Ray

[NXR]

Originally Posted by moisheh

Thanks. Yesterday I did some more reading on the Amish mod and the ARP. If I buy that unit definitely do all the mods. If my usage was diferent I would install a residential unit.

Just remembered a few more things. If the fridge is over ten years old then JC recommends that the fans, the propane burner, and the electric heaters be replaced. JC sells a version of their propane/electric cooling unit with those extra pieces-parts for an additional $235.

Just moving the propane burner from the old one to the new one can take a half hour or more, so at a mobile RV tech's labor rates you're probably close to breakeven if you buy the more expensive cooling unit version with the new parts already installed and pre-tested.

The rear fan thermostatic switch gets moved to the JC cooling unit but their pre-drilled screw holes are slightly larger than needed for the screws that will be re-used. So the fan thermostatic switch is not firmly against its mounting plate. In fact it's kind of loose.

It was loose on both motorhomes so we had the techs replace the fan thermostatic switch screws with larger ones.

Trust but verify, and apparently "highly recommended" does not mean as much as I would have hoped..

Ray

[moisheh]

Thanks for the great information.

[Jo-e90]

Originally Posted by NXR

Just remembered a few more things. If the fridge is over ten years old then JC recommends that the fans, the propane burner, and the electric heaters be replaced. JC sells a version of their propane/electric cooling unit with those extra pieces-parts for an additional $235.

Just moving the propane burner from the old one to the new one can take a half hour or more, so at a mobile RV tech's labor rates you're probably close to breakeven if you buy the more expensive cooling unit version with the new parts already installed and pre-tested.

The rear fan thermostatic switch gets moved to the JC cooling unit but their pre-drilled screw holes are slightly larger than needed for the screws that will be re-used. So the fan thermostatic switch is not firmly against its mounting plate. In fact it's kind of loose.


It was loose on both motorhomes so we had the techs replace the fan thermostatic switch screws with larger ones.

Trust but verify, and apparently "highly recommended" does not mean as much as I would have hoped..

Ray

Does JC even offer a 120V/12V cooling unit?