light bulb to keep fridge warm?

Hi Hershy,

If you don't rv in cold (-10 c or lower) then it may be a non issue. But at -37 it IS. DAMHIK

I've been fulltimeing for over 11 years and never heard of this light bulb/refrigerator idea.

Gordon fyi my thermocube activated the light bulb last night. First time this fall that has happened.

I went to the hardware store and bought a single light fixture with a pull chain for on and off. I pulled the bottom excess door to the frig. and mounted it on the wood in front of the frig just inside the access door. Which is about all the space you have to mount this. I put a 60watt light bulb in it. And like said above I put a dual plug outlet and plugged it into the outlet the frig was plugged in. When I am in real cold weather where I know the temperature will effect the cooling of the frig on electrical mode. I open the bottom access door and pull the chain to turn the light on. Then I put the door back on. It has worked fine for the last 6 years. From what you have said you will have to get 110V to the back of your frig.You will need the old time light bulb. The new type light bulbs don't put out the heat. I stocked up on the 60 watt old style light bulbs so I would not have that problem for a very long time.

I opened up my lower outside access, and there's no outlet :(

The electrical cord from the control box runs upward, so I removed the upper access vent and there's nothing there but tubing, no clearance to get an arm in there or anything.

I'm tempted to drill a little hole in the plywood that the fridge is sitting on, and see if I can fish a coat hanger down into the cabinet below, where my electrical panel lives. then I can run a cable and install a compact outlet

I used one on my trailer.
I pulled the outside access panel on the fridge and replaced the single outlet with a dual one. Plugged the fridge in to the lower plug, and the 25-40w bulb in to the upper one. I used one of those simple $2 outlet to threaded bulb base things, so it held the bulb in place (off of anything).

I was stupid and started out with a 100w bulb, and melted a little control box on the back of the fridge, but just cosmetic damage.

I also covered most of the vents on the access panel with duct tape (on the inside) to help hold in heat. -25*F without issue.

Hi Gordon,

You are more than welcome.

Hi Don,

Thank you for the fast answers, and the information in the full timing winter thread!

Gordon

Hi Gordon,

I have had no problems with the thermocube. But then, it only has a 60 watt load on it, and is a TC-2 so it cuts in at about 4 C.

How has the reliability of that thermostat outlet been for you? The reviews I've found of them give me the impression they're terribly unreliable... but I guess, the folks without problems are just not posting, so it seems like a lot of problems but really isn't.