ARP Refrigerator Protection

Take 100 RV refrigerators. "X" percent are operated "X" hours per year. A bell curve if you will. So it would be difficult to assess one from another just by looking at the problem. The straw that broke the camel's back was my last Norcold. It would operate continuously for about 10-15 days then everything turned warm. Shut it down for two days, and it would work perfect for the next 10-15 days. Sal at Kool Fun in Irwindale CA., replaced the cooling unit under warranty twice with brand new cooling units from Norcold. When the third cooling unit did the same thing, it was pitched out of the emergency exit. This thing had an icemaker which promptly plugged-up even though DISTILLED water was used exclusively. This grade of garbage is polar opposite from Swedish Servel refrigerators which lasted several decades used 24/7.

You'd couldn't give me a gas refrigerator now. I'm still fuming over the hundreds and hundreds of dollars in spoiled food and endless needless shopping trips. Bah Humbug.

IAMICHABOD wrote:
WOW such ire and name calling,it must be a sore subject.....

I know that it has been a problem with this type of Refrigerator other wise there would not be so many cottage industries repairing them.

With the hundreds of thousands of these made what percentage fail. If mine fails I will replace it,but at 10 years of poor use and no problems, I will save my money,the damage has been done so I am told by the experts here:R

BTW Doug they are told and shown a video,look at about 11:16 min, on proper leveling.....as always when Rental comes up people talk about things they know nothing about.

There are tens of Millions RV absorbsion refers out there. They may watch a Video, but will forget it once they leave. COST of Refer repair was 1 of the factors in why we gave up on RV rentals years ago. I KNOW all about rental's and know the mindset of the users. Doug

IAMICHABOD wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
It would be interesting to know how many RV fridges quit working due to being out of level for extended periods of time. I know this topic has come up before and several people chimed in, mostly truck campers BTW, and commented that their fridges were still working fine after many years. I do wonder if the problem isn't being overstated.

I also would like to know,I know of one that failed after 7 years of continuous use,in a rear sloping driveway.HERE

My 10 year old Former Rental,and we all know how they are treated,works very well and gets ready to put things in the freezer and refrig in about 6 hours.

A while back and I was at El Monte RV and talked to the service manager and I asked him about the problems that they may have had and he told me that in the 10 years that he had worked there he had never had a Refrigerator fail. In that time I would guess that they have had a few hundred RVs thru there and not one failure and he hasn't had one come back after a sale for that problem. Could it be that the constant movement of a rental helps?

Constant movement of a rental? Hardly. Remember, the MOST COMMON problems with Rental RV's ARE Rental customers. They have no clue how to operate the RV and could NOT care if the refer is level. Besides, they were probably never told about level operation when they picked up the rental. Doug

There are 2 main reasons* an absorption unit can fail- it can leak, or it can become blocked.

There are 2 reasons it can become blocked, manufacturing defect- a bit of welding slag left in the unit, and the sodium tetrachromate being overheated and solidifying, blocking the boiler. The first problem will normally manifest itself in the warranty period, the second is always due to off level operation**

Leaking is usually due to internal corrosion of the evaporator, internal corrosion of the boiler, or stress fractures at the boiler. The boiler failures are usually due to overheating, often caused by off level operation.***

I have rebuilt literally hundreds of these refrigerators, probably half due to blocked units.

*There is another failure mode which is very hard to diagnose, and that is caused by overheating producing another gas, which displaces the hydrogen. The chemical theory behind that is above my pay grade.

**This failure mode is usually gradual, a slow decrease in performance.

***One thing about off level operation- the ARP really doesn't care how level the unit is, and bottom line is level is just a metric we can measure easily. What matters is the boiler temperature, which needs to be high enough to vaporize the ammonia, but below the boiling point of water. If the refrigerant is circulating, it doesn't matter about level.

It would be interesting to know how many RV fridges quit working due to being out of level for extended periods of time. I know this topic has come up before and several people chimed in, mostly truck campers BTW, and commented that their fridges were still working fine after many years. I do wonder if the problem isn't being overstated.

Hi,

Only one post in the entire thread is wishy washy about the ARP. That person wanted "proof" that it works. Personally I could not wait to have one. No more driving in circles in parking lots to find the flattest spot for me!

RECVEH2005 wrote:
Well, this discussion has been a good education for me, the original poster. Unfortunately, there is NO access to the rear of my fridge at all; it would have to be pulled out from inside to access the rear of the unit (I cannot understand why it was designed that way!) The trailer is 3 years old - I think I have to weigh the part & labor cost of having an ARP unit installed on a 3 year-old Norcold fridge against the estimated remaining life of the fridge.

Mike

Well, this discussion has been a good education for me, the original poster. Unfortunately, there is NO access to the rear of my fridge at all; it would have to be pulled out from inside to access the rear of the unit (I cannot understand why it was designed that way!) The trailer is 3 years old - I think I have to weigh the part & labor cost of having an ARP unit installed on a 3 year-old Norcold fridge against the estimated remaining life of the fridge.

Mike

johnhicks wrote:
> difficult to install without pulling the refer.

That's for sure. I got it after a couple hours of shaved knuckles. It probably would've been easier to ease the reefer out a few inches.

Yes, It is one of those times that in hindsight it would have been easier. Doug

> difficult to install without pulling the refer.

That's for sure. I got it after a couple hours of shaved knuckles. It probably would've been easier to ease the reefer out a few inches.

timmac wrote:
How bout just installing a small button fan and run it while traveling down the road, would this work as well without dishing out 195 bucks ?

No what the ARP system does is to basically not allow the liquid in the boiler tube to get too hot due to lack of circulation and or volumetic flow which causes the liquid to get hot enough that the Al Chromate (I think that's the coolant/heat transfer liquid) crystallizes out and is deposited on the interior of the boiler tube. What this does is reduce the concentration of that chemical in the ammonia mix and also restricts the flow of the liquid thru the boiler tube where the heating occurs. This is somewhat analgous to Plaque and hardening of the arties in a human, it's cumulative and when has restricted flow enough your refer dies or the human has a heart attack. This boiler tube temp issue have very, very little to do with the ambient temps or external fans. The external fans and ambient temps mainly are an issue in reducing the temp of the fluid/gas mix after it has gone tru the evap coils at the top of the refer so that the mix entering the boiler area at the bottom of the frig is all liquid and not a mix of liquid and gas.

DISCLAIMER: I think I have all the above correct, but not being an actual refer expert I claim the 5th if I got anything too far wrong in the above info. Some might not be 100% technically correct, but I think the general "GIST" is there and fairly accurate.

Larry