Norcold 1210 gets a makeover with Amish cooling unit and ARP
I got my Fridge Defend installed yesterday after speaking to Paul, the company owner who answered some technical questions. The day before yesterday I installed a new Amish cooling unit from JC refrigeration in my Norcold 1210. I wanted to run the new cooling unit for 24 hours before I installed the Fridge Defend. This was to check the functionality of the new cooling unit with stock controls and to see how it cooled before any modifications. The installation was pretty straight forward but not for someone that is not technically inclined. I have 40 years of Instrumentation and process controls experience in offshore oil so it was pretty easy for me.
My primary motivation for installing the Fridge Defend was safety. I had a refrigerator fire with a Dometic refrigerator in about 2008. It had already had one recall done which apparently was ineffective. Fortunately, I was right there and was able to extinguish the fire with no RV damage. From that point forward, I was always worried about absorption refrigeration technology. After understanding the process, I am amazed at the lack of safety controls on what is essentially a boiler and distillation tower. They would never get away with this in the Oil and Gas industry and yet we sleep in our RV’s on top of a ticking time bomb.
My other motivation is my Norcold was starting to show compromised cooling capacity and in some cases, no cooling. I am sure this was due to mountain driving and occasional off level parking. I exercised my extended warranty and was very pleased that my Mobile RV tech that did the install only uses aftermarket cooling units.
My fridge is installed in a slide out and I had already installed an extra cooling fan in the top vent to help exhaust the hot air that stagnates at the top vent. These vents are designed for up flow air. This makes them somewhat water proof to falling rain. This works good for the bottom vent but is bad news for the top vent where the rising hot air can’t get out because it has to go down to go out. The fan I installed at the top helped with the overall cooling of the fridge. I had also installed a bypass switch around the snap switch so that I could run the fans 24/7 if need be. This also helped with the overall cooling of the unit but by this time the damage had already been done to my factory cooling unit. When I found out I was getting a new cooling unit I got online and immediately ordered a Fridge Defend with fan control.
My initial impression is that the Fridge Defend and Amish cooling unit are working as they should. Certainly better then the Norcold cooling unit. On initial start-up, my fridge/freezer was at operating temperature in about 4 hours on setting “9”. I left it on “9” over night and the fridge was at 25*F in the morning and freezer was -1*F. I am now running the fridge setting at 5 and maintaining 35/5 temperatures. This gives me some overhead to increase the setting when we hit 100+ temperatures in June.
I know I will sleep better at night and not feel uneasy about leaving the cats in the RV when we are out playing. This is because I have Fridge Defend and a stronger built cooling unit. I should have installed the Fridge Defend when my 2015 RV was new but I was working and living in the RV and had some confidence that the fire danger was minimal on a new RV. As fridge performance started to decline I knew it was time for a new cooling unit and this time with Fridge Defend.
My primary motivation for installing the Fridge Defend was safety. I had a refrigerator fire with a Dometic refrigerator in about 2008. It had already had one recall done which apparently was ineffective. Fortunately, I was right there and was able to extinguish the fire with no RV damage. From that point forward, I was always worried about absorption refrigeration technology. After understanding the process, I am amazed at the lack of safety controls on what is essentially a boiler and distillation tower. They would never get away with this in the Oil and Gas industry and yet we sleep in our RV’s on top of a ticking time bomb.
My other motivation is my Norcold was starting to show compromised cooling capacity and in some cases, no cooling. I am sure this was due to mountain driving and occasional off level parking. I exercised my extended warranty and was very pleased that my Mobile RV tech that did the install only uses aftermarket cooling units.
My fridge is installed in a slide out and I had already installed an extra cooling fan in the top vent to help exhaust the hot air that stagnates at the top vent. These vents are designed for up flow air. This makes them somewhat water proof to falling rain. This works good for the bottom vent but is bad news for the top vent where the rising hot air can’t get out because it has to go down to go out. The fan I installed at the top helped with the overall cooling of the fridge. I had also installed a bypass switch around the snap switch so that I could run the fans 24/7 if need be. This also helped with the overall cooling of the unit but by this time the damage had already been done to my factory cooling unit. When I found out I was getting a new cooling unit I got online and immediately ordered a Fridge Defend with fan control.
My initial impression is that the Fridge Defend and Amish cooling unit are working as they should. Certainly better then the Norcold cooling unit. On initial start-up, my fridge/freezer was at operating temperature in about 4 hours on setting “9”. I left it on “9” over night and the fridge was at 25*F in the morning and freezer was -1*F. I am now running the fridge setting at 5 and maintaining 35/5 temperatures. This gives me some overhead to increase the setting when we hit 100+ temperatures in June.
I know I will sleep better at night and not feel uneasy about leaving the cats in the RV when we are out playing. This is because I have Fridge Defend and a stronger built cooling unit. I should have installed the Fridge Defend when my 2015 RV was new but I was working and living in the RV and had some confidence that the fire danger was minimal on a new RV. As fridge performance started to decline I knew it was time for a new cooling unit and this time with Fridge Defend.
