New Dometic Recall Initiated March 11, 2008

Yes, your experience is very common. Most units will never develop dangerous stress patterns, but a higher ratio than what we consider normal will. I don't know the exact numbers, but lets say that prior to the recall, maybe .1% of refers failed in this manner (this is a guess). Out of all the recall units, perhaps 10% will end up with cracked boilers (another guess). This means most recalled refers will not fail due to a cracked boiler, but many more than normal will. The odds are very very slim that any of your units will go up in flames. In order for that to happen, a crack needs to occur while running it on gas. In addition to this, the temp needs to be sufficient to make the ammonia flammable, in addition the crack needs to be the correct size to sustain the correct volume of ammonia / hydrogen, and also be directing it into the flame area. If I understand correctly what Dometic has published on the matter, the odds of having your boiler break, then have it be followed by a fire are about .01% (that's one one hundredth of one percent). Of course you have to wonder whether or not they have a biased opinion.

That being said, a risk of fire is still a risk most people don't want to take (no matter how small), and I don't blame them. As stated earlier, the recall kit does nothing to prevent the boiler from breaking. It's only intended to contain a fire should one occur. Still, even with the recall IMO there is still some danger. Hydrogen is an active molecule and it's conceivable it could wick out through the fiber glass in the flue area and burn in another location (not likely, but conceivable). I don't have any hard evidence to back this up, but I have seen hydrogen burn before. Let's just hope the folks at Dometic know what they are doing this time. I say "lets hope" because they obviously dropped the ball on building a safe and reliable cooling core. Tim