Refridgerator replacement

Hi,

If your pocket book can stand it get a unit that runs on 12 volts--that eliminates the 12% loss of energy that even a good inverter offers.

Stay away from Samsung. OEM's have dropped Samsung because finding a Service Center that will work on Samsung refers IN RV's is difficult to find. I live in the DFW Texas area(VERY large area) and we cannot get any Samsung Authorized Service people to come work on Samsung in RV's. Not a problem if you expect to have NO problems under the Samsun warranty, but a big problem if it does malfunction. Remember, you disassemble both the Dometic interior doors and door brackets to remove the refer. You do the same to the Residential when installing it, so it does free up some space. Just make sure you do NOT have a curved roof in the refer cabinet where the interior roof meets the sidewall. The top of the Residential will probably hit that curved spot and you cannot get it in that last 1 to 2 inches. The last one I had that did that, I had enough space to notch out that part of the interior roof to get the refer all the way in. Doug

Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

ScottG wrote:
Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

Was not aware of this option. The Samsung appears to be at least 4" deeper than the Dometic installed. No way I have that much space with slide in.

Will have to think about the mod. Just so happens & can make a detour without much of a problem to them next summer.

Veebyes wrote:

ScottG wrote:
Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

Was not aware of this option. The Samsung appears to be at least 4" deeper than the Dometic installed. No way I have that much space with slide in.

Will have to think about the mod. Just so happens & can make a detour without much of a problem to them next summer.

One of the projects I plan on doing this winter is to reinstall our fridge to the exact spec's written by Norcold. The manufacturers doesn't pay much attention to them and I can see some of the clearances are wrong.
If that doesn't make the mediocre performance of its cooling unit work better, I will install one of the 12VDC compressor units.

What failed on your last Dometic? Sure seems like lots of gas fridges get removed for not cooling well when the problem is only poor ventilation. Over the years had many gas fridges that lasted 10+ years. Found in humid climates it was best to leave the RV plugged in and the fridge on. Keeping the coils hot seemed to help keep them from rusting and springing a leak. The weak spot always seemed to be the welds on the coils. A little surface rust would dig into the shallow areas of the weld and cause a leak. Had much better luck with our older rigs prior to slides. When the fridge was able to have a overhead vent through the roof, it got much better air flow and stayed cooler in hot weather. Now that most fridges are in slides, it's more of a challenge to keep the air in the back of the fridge cool. In my decades of RVing I've never seen any gas fridge that slowly went bad. That type of symptom usually meant some sort of ventilation problem with the back of the fridge, often a failed sensor for cooling fans, a bad fan, or a displaced shroud. They cool the same until the gas leaks out and even the tiniest of holes will dump the entire charge of hydrogen gas (the smallest element) overnight.



This is what I've done on our latest coach... So far the modification has worked well, this next summer will be the real test but I'm confident I've solved my problem. Other gas fridges I had with overhead vents cooled just fine no matter how hot it got outside so I'm sure poor performance is almost always a venting issue.

https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/29770712.cfm

My original Dometic sprung leaks in the coil. It was barely out of warranty. The cost to repair was about $1000 less than replacement so we replaced. The new one has 2 cooling fans & has outlasted the original by a long way already.

I bookmarked JC Refridgeration & will be giving them a call. My unit is currently is storage, nothing plugged in, & I won't be seeing it again till April next year.

ScottG wrote:
Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

Sure wish they would have put some prices on those conversions. When they don't price that stuff I always figure it's one of those "If you have to ask..." situations.

fj12ryder wrote:

ScottG wrote:
Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

Sure wish they would have put some prices on those conversions. When they don't price that stuff I always figure it's one of those "If you have to ask..." situations.

That's strange, they used to have prices but I don't see them anymore.
A while back I called them and asked if they had an application for my fridge (they only list the 4 door Norcold) and was told they have applications for every popular model. They just haven't updated the site yet.
IIRC, prices were between $650 (AC) and $800 (DC).

I just replaced mine with a house fridge. So far so good.