I had a 1200 Norcold that the cooling unit failed on in Feburary of 09. Lower box got up to 65 degrees while the ice maker continued to make ice. Camping World replaced the cooling unit with a new one at that time on my extended warranty. Almost exactly 6 months later same thing happened. Camping World offered to change unit again on their dime as was still under their one year warranty. After talking to Norcold warranty department I decided that it just wasn't worth the effort to go through the work and change again. We live in our coach full time and just getting to a Camping World is at least an hour each way. We both have jobs so can't leave the coach as we need a place to sleep at night. We opted to replace the Norcold unit with a Kenmore residentual refridgerator. This unit neetly fit right in the hole that the Norcold came out of with only minor adjustment. Needed to cut the 2 inch header out and 1/8 inch from one side of the opening. Kenmore unit slid right in. It does protrud out about 6 inches further than the Norcold did. But now I have ice and water through the door and nearly double the amount of cubic feet of storage space. The Norcold was 12.6 cu.ft. while the Kenmore is 21.8 cu.ft. I can put 3 one gallon of milk jugs front to back inside and not fill all the shelf space. We are nearly always plugged into shore power and when we travel we just run the generator every couple hours or on short trips all the time. It only uses about a pint of diesel per hour. I highly recommend anyone who is a full timer like us to convert to a real refridgerator. Cost of a replacement Norcold was $4400 cost of a new Kenmore while on sale was $1300. It will take me a long time to burn up the difference in what extra diesel I will have to use while traveling to run my generator. The headaches of the RV fridge are gone now. I don't have to worry about running my battery down or the propane tank dry. I can stock enough food to last all week or longer instead of 3 or 4 days. Why anyone thinks they need an RV fridge is beyond me. You pay a lot for nothing. ANd by the way when we removed the Norcold there was a black charred area where the exhaust stack ends inside the opening. Our unit was in a slide room so no cooling vent hole to the roof.
Jim