Norcold 1200

Ivylog wrote:
Congratulations on buying a great coach... Monaco Exe.

Yes you need to have the recall black box installed immediately. If overheating and catching on fire is not a problem then why did Norcold come out with the heat sensing shut off black box? Unfortunately this Band-Aid has shut off more refrigerators when they have not overheated than when they do and they are on Rev E of it...maybe F.

I lived with my 1200 for 10 years by installing a auto fire system in the roof vent, a smoke detector behind it and shutting it off whenever it was not needed. During that time I spent way too much money on it and in hindsight should've gone residential instead of replacing the cooling unit.

If you do the above safety precautions I would continue to use it until you are faced with spending serious money on it. At that point I would go residential.

*PS: until you go through a summer you will not know if it is working great. Good Luck.

1. Overheating will not cause a fire. Overheating will DESTROY a good cooling unit.
2. Overheating CAN cause a rupture in the cooling unit, so this Recall box stops the refer before that critical heat is reached.
3. Norcold came out with this particular Recall Box(standard on all new 1200/1210), because of liability concerns. They already had the Hi Limit switch, but opted to go with a better system.
4. The recall box is NOT a part that helps if there is a Ammonia leak. IF you have an Ammonia leak and the Ammonia is gone or still leaking, then the recall box will trip the refer off once it reaches 700 degrees at the burner flue. Doug

grldst wrote:
We just bought a used 2002 Executive with the Norcold 1200 LRIM...fridge works great, there is no sign of the black box with the red light.

Should I be concerned.... apparently this fridge has been working for some time without any issues.

I'm inclined to side with "dougrainer" on this issue.

take the cooling unit serial number and see if its in the recall
not every 1200/1210 unit was.Iam pretty sure you can get a free kit installed even if its not but at least you will know
The recall kit kills the 12V power that runs the control board if in the event it was overheating
In general these fridges work very well but its 14 years old.As long as its never been run off level its most likely in good condition
have the insulation removed in the burner area and check for heavy rust corrosion.If not notable its good if heavy corrosion replace cooling unit

Congratulations on buying a great coach... Monaco Exe.

Yes you need to have the recall black box installed immediately. If overheating and catching on fire is not a problem then why did Norcold come out with the heat sensing shut off black box? Unfortunately this Band-Aid has shut off more refrigerators when they have not overheated than when they do and they are on Rev E of it...maybe F.

I lived with my 1200 for 10 years by installing a auto fire system in the roof vent, a smoke detector behind it and shutting it off whenever it was not needed. During that time I spent way too much money on it and in hindsight should've gone residential instead of replacing the cooling unit.

If you do the above safety precautions I would continue to use it until you are faced with spending serious money on it. At that point I would go residential.

*PS: until you go through a summer you will not know if it is working great. Good Luck.

We just bought a used 2002 Executive with the Norcold 1200 LRIM...fridge works great, there is no sign of the black box with the red light.

Should I be concerned.... apparently this fridge has been working for some time without any issues.

I'm inclined to side with "dougrainer" on this issue.

Doug, this is the only subject we disagree on. Of the ten I've seen up close and personal, all have been Norcold 12XX. I can tell a 1200 from 100' away or from a picture by the size/location of coils on the back. I have seen pictures of over 25 rigs burnt in the refer area and 20+ of them were definitely 1200's.
In my opinion the problem with`1200's cooling and fires is the size of the lower coils... they are not much larger than ones for their units half the size.

Norcold 600 series cooling unit.


NoCold 1200 series cooling unit.


A Amish 1200 replacement cooling unit.

I just laugh when I see these threads about the Norcold 1200/1210. You can ALWAYS find someone that will state they have seen fires caused by a Norcold. I work in a million plus metroplex. We have millions of RV's in this DFW, Texas area. WHAT caused the fire? NOBODY CAN STATE for SURE. WAS it a leaking cooling unit? Who knows. I have seen 3 rear fires on a Norcold 1200 in the 20 years that model has been out. NONE were caused by a leaking cooling unit. The causes were LP leaks and Rodent/Bird nests. I have been an RV Tech for 37 years and there have been small and Massive Cooling unit leaks over those years I have looked at and repaired. NONE have ever burnt the RV and None ever caught fire. Both Dometic and Norcold refers. Funny how the FIRE problem was first reported on Dometic's 15 years ago and Dometic came out with the first recall Band Aid fix and NOBODY ever talks about possible fires on the Dometic refers, which have the exact same risk as a 1200 and ALL the Norcold RV Ammonia models. People think that if you have a leak, you will then have a fire. NOT TRUE. Regardless of 120 or LP operation. Doug

Keep it up. This is for our safety, not a pissing contest. Knowledge is power.

I've seen 8-10 up close, most at Copart and three in our winter snowbird park. Most have been Norcold 1200 and those three were caught soon enough that it was smoke damage and blistered paint on the side behind the refer although they replaced the entire side on one MH.
I mounted my auto fire system in the roof vent so it would activate when needed.
With this amount of damage and the plastic refer vents still intact, there is NO way this was a refer fire.


The ones at Copart auto salvage yards have been totaled and looked more like this.

Ivylog wrote:
RV refer fires burn at the back of the unit, not at the front. Both plastic vents would be gone, you will be able to see the back of the refer through the side of the camper and the hole would be in the top of the slide out, not the roof of the camper. I did replace my NoCold 1200 with a home unit partly because of the fire potential but this was not a refer fire.
Sad that a working smoke detector should have saved four lives.

SCVJeff, I used to be a volunteer fireman... does that count?

sure, but there are also several here that have gone deep into some of these fires. I've seen two close up, one an Alpha at a shop and there was no indication externally, but smoke, however it got in, totaled the coach. All I could see was smoke mark from the top of the fridge. They wouldn't let me past the front door so that's all that could be seen.
There are lots of pix and stories of fridge fires that are nowhere near this catastrophic and people die, obviously from smoke inhalation. Some pix aren't even close to this, including one that had a Halon extinguisher down at the bottom, but ignition was at the top of the heat elements and it never released. Again little damage on the outside and NONE down below and the coach was totaled (story somewhere on iRV2). After reading that I bought a second Halon extinguisher mounted at the top.

At the end of the day none of us know what this fire is but there's obviously nothing in front of the fridge. I'm keeping the LP but the anhydrous ammonia cooler is gone.

Good feedback. That is what I was fishing for.