Dometic Refrigerator Not Keeping Cold

One thing you may want to try before spending any money is moving the temperature sensor that hangs by a clip inside the refrigerator. Its purpose is to sense the temp in the fridge and turn on or turn off the cooling unit at the appropriate times (similar to the thermostat in a home). Normally, the warmest part of the fridge is going to be near the top. Coolest part is near the bottom. A friend of mine was experiencing higher than normal temps. We found that the sensor had been knocked loose from its normal position on the metal cooling fins at the top of the reefer cabinet. It was hanging down by the wires at a much lower location than normal in the reefer cabinet and therefore turning off the cooling unit prematurely. We clipped the sensor back up top on the far right side of the cooling fins. Unit seems to be working fine since then.

Simple, seeing your knew on here...I'm going out on a limb to assume your RV is knew to you.....if so

the RV fridges can and do work great....but they are SLOW to recover from doors open too long or being open too frequently.

Kids will be kids....so kids drinks are best to be put in a cooler, not the fridge.

if your wife is like mine, who likes to open the door then study what is inside the fridge....well....I can't help on that, except to say...choose your battles...lol

Key is all foods need precooling or pre freezing(if at all possible)...and doors need to be shut as quickly as possible. NEVER put a pot of hot soup or chili or any hot foods in the fridge..allow them to cool first.

I followed the advice of the exhaust fan in the upper vent...found a perfect one and it fit right in there and dropped down the AC chord...hooked it into a switch...between that and I keep the other two 12 v fans running all the time when in the coach...my temp at setting 3 is 6 or lower in freezer..38 degrees in refrig...that exhaust fan stopped the increasing temps during the day..That and putting corking up the bottom hole in the freezer make this fridge hard to beat..

wildmanbaker wrote:
Doug,

Thanks for you continued input on RV problems, but some people do not realize that you ARE an RV TECH! They refuse to take your advice and help and cause them selves much more trouble that just listening to your advice. You have helped me, when I have been off-course, and many others I have had very few problems with our many Dometic refers. I had talked to an RVer about their slide out, and in the discussion, the mention that he had been a tech at a boat house rental on the Hover Dam Reservoir, and they would rent to a lot of collage groups. As you can image, it was a party on rentals. He said they had nothing but trouble with Norcold, and hardly any problems with the Dometic, except for broken parts. He said he would never have any RV that had anything except for a Dometic, due to his experience.

Listen to Doug.

Well, I have 35 years experiance as an RV tech. MY experiance is--I would prefer Norcold, because IMO, Norcold produces a colder lower fridge temp. Their insulation is a little better. BOTH are good, but if I had my choice--Norcold. Doug

Doug,

Thanks for you continued input on RV problems, but some people do not realize that you ARE an RV TECH! They refuse to take your advice and help and cause them selves much more trouble that just listening to your advice. You have helped me, when I have been off-course, and many others I have had very few problems with our many Dometic refers. I had talked to an RVer about their slide out, and in the discussion, the mention that he had been a tech at a boat house rental on the Hover Dam Reservoir, and they would rent to a lot of collage groups. As you can image, it was a party on rentals. He said they had nothing but trouble with Norcold, and hardly any problems with the Dometic, except for broken parts. He said he would never have any RV that had anything except for a Dometic, due to his experience.

Listen to Doug.

I spent a lot of time researching the problems with Dometic here in Texas. You can find the results of my testing here:

Chillin with Bob

Hope something here helps.

Geocritter wrote:
I have to ask, with all the threads written about Dometic refrigerator problems, can those things ever be counted on to work properly for longer than a week? I'm being completely serious, currently I have a small household refrigerator in my RV but in the past it had a Dometic and the hook-ups are still there. Since I plan to do future boondocking it behooves me to have a Dometic, but I don't want one if it's going to be a constant source of aggravation and spoiled food.
Steve

There are only 2 makers of RV refers. Dometic and Norcold. So, if you ONLY had Chevy and Ford that made cars, would you not ask the same question if the ONLY complaints were on Ford and Chevy cars??? Remember, these are NOT problems on NEW units, but problems that are usually lack of maintenance (ventilation and cleaning the burner) or a failure of some part that is causing a malfunction. Doug

I have to ask, with all the threads written about Dometic refrigerator problems, can those things ever be counted on to work properly for longer than a week? I'm being completely serious, currently I have a small household refrigerator in my RV but in the past it had a Dometic and the hook-ups are still there. Since I plan to do future boondocking it behooves me to have a Dometic, but I don't want one if it's going to be a constant source of aggravation and spoiled food.
Steve

Is this a new-to-you coach? Has the refer run properly in the past, and this is a new problem? If it used to work fine, and now it doesn't, it's not a ventilation problem unless you have a mouse nest or some other obstruction in the vent, which is doubtful.
If you take the access panel off, you will find a small black box that has a cover held on by a screw. Remove the cover, and you will see some fuses. Check the fuses. I've had your problem two times. Freezer worked great, frige, not so much. First time it was a blown fuse, simple fix. Second time I had to replace the circuit board. Also and easy fix, ordered the board online for about $120, took 5 mins to swap it out.

These units work as designed. If it's worked fine for some time, and now it doesn't, something has changed. And if the freezer works fine, it's not likely to be the cooling unit failing.

Jim

A small fan can help the cooling a lot. Some are battery powered. But they circulate the air all over the fridge.

I don't know why, but I've seen many RV fridges not work as good as home ones. We ended up ripping out the RV fridge and bought a 120v from walmart for $150. It's awesome. Nope, won't run on propane, but it really gets cold, circulates, defrosts, and freezes well.