freezer door air leak and icing

As funny as it seems, I had frost build up in Dometic on my 2002 Discovery. Found on door of frezer a sign that says do not put shelf on door in this position. There are several shelves on the door already and they are removable. One could be in the don't put in this spot position.It was holding the door open slightly. I have also packed the frezer to full at times where the frozen food held the door open. I is worth a look.
Chuck

I used to build refrigerated units for restaurants. These gaskets get hard over time and need replaced. When we built them we would sometimes have to make the gasket thicker in some areas to make it seal. We accomplished this by running a bead of silicone behind the gasket to shim it up......hard to do this to an old, hard, gasket.

Remove gasket and line the entire back with exterior double sided tape....it is about 1/8 of an inch of thickness and a clear plastic...maybe that will help. I think the gaskets compress over time.....not sure if that is your issue, but it's a thought for you.

I have a 18 year old Norcold 681 IM model and am not familiar with the Domectic but if it has the black plastic latch one on top for the freezer and one lower for the refer section. What I did on mine when it failed the dollar bill test is to removed the latch (2 screws) and removed about .060 of an in. from the backside with a grinding wheel, and re installed the latch, this effectively created a tighter seal where the dollar bill no longer pulled out easily, lowered the refer temps and reduced the ice buildup on the fins. I would only do this if it fails the dollar bill test because every time you open the door you will let humidity in and ice forms on the fins anyways.

Turn fridge off
Open door
Place cotton balls under gasket in the corners
Heat gasket using hair dryer...get it nice and warm....takes a while
Then close door, turn fridge back on and let gasket 'reset'
After about an hour remove cotton balls

If that doesn't work.......not much else can be done except replace door if one can be found via an RV Salvage place. But no guarantees it will seal any better

Every RV I have had has ice build up in the upper part of the freezer compartment. None of them failed the dollar bill leak test. I always thought it was caused by warm moist air condensing on cold surface from the door being opened and closed. Just like in the old timey home refrigerators before the manufacturers added fans and warming coils in the door frames.

We have a cheapy apartment sized refrigerator in the office that does the same thing... about every 6 months we have to defrost it to prevent the ice build up from allowing the door to close properly.

Thanks, we'll try that. Do you know of anywhere that handles replacement parts if that is the problem? This model refrig/freezer is no longer made, surprise surprise!

If the door is warped, there is little you can do except replace it. Thats why I suggested taking the door off and checking it.

Clearly there is a leak. The first thing we did was the dollar bill test, this has been an on-going problem. We're looking for creative solutions to stop this leak beyond the obvious things we've tried so far

Do the dollar bill test. Open the door, place a dollar bill against the gasket, close the door and try pulling the bill out. Move freely? Leak. Tight? No leak. Ice build up is only caused by one thing warm air meeting cold air. Either you are opening the door too much or the door is not closing properly. As a last resort, take the door off, remove the gasket and using a straight edge check it to be sure it is not twisted or warped.