Empty Nest, Soon wrote:
Tim,
I’ve been thinking about these photos you posted, and the evidence of high heat and smoke that I see in them.
It wonder if this unit caught fire, but that the fire occurred only in the cowling and did not spread to the house. How else would one explain the discoloration of the galvanized cowling, the melting of the condensation drain line and the insulation, and the smoke residue?
And you say this unit was operated only on electricity? And glowing red-hot?
I can’t help but wonder whether operation on electricity only is really that much safer than operation on gas, if you have the too-hot electric element.
Wayne
I wondered about that too (if maybe it did catch fire), and still I'm not quite sure. After inspection, I decided it had been smoldering due the the excessive ongoing heat. Like others have said, when the coolant is gone, the inside of the refer gets warm, and the thermistor / circuit board call for more heat at the boiler. As a result the element gets energized non-stop with no coolant to dissipate heat (a hazardous situation). This is the reason I believe Dometic added the thermal cut-off to the boiler area. I don't believe the cut-off is intended to cycle during normal operation. I think it's only intended as a fail safe.
By the way, I've seen them hot before, but this is the hottest one I've seen. It was daylight when I got there and I could clearly see it glowing red. He had the same element in it during the other failures, and it had also been left on for a few days before I got there, but it didn't get hot enough to cause any discoloration or burn the galvanizing off the cowling. Not sure why this time was different.
On a side note, I contacted the scrap metal guy this morning and he no longer has this unit. Now that Dometic is doing the recall, it's unlikely I'll get another one in. I can't afford to work for Dometic, so I'll be sending all of these to the "Authorized Dometic Service Center" from now on. Tim
