Refrigerator Not As Cold As It Ought To Be

pnichols wrote:
Our RV refrigerator has five (5) average coldness settings via a 5-position master temperature switch. I can control the absolute average temperature of both the refrigerator and freezer (together but not separately) by selecting any one the five positions of this switch - so I probably can force the freezer down to an average of (the industry recommended) 0 degrees, if I wanted to, by using setting 4 or 5 of the master temperature switch.

However while doing this, the refrigerator temperature would then be too low (i.e. milk frozen solid). What I want to do is change the relative relationship/spacing between the refrigerator and freezer temperatures regardless of whatever position I have the master temperature switch set at.

In other words, I'd like to set the master temperature switch at whatever setting it took to have a zero degree freezer and then have the slider permanently adjusted such that the refrigerator then wound up at a temperature of around (the industry recommended) 38 degrees.

If sliding the thermistor up/down on our Norcold refrigerator does the same thing as on the OP's brand of refrigerator, then maybe I could find a position for the sliding thermistor such that the refrigerator and freezer temperatures averaged 38 degress apart for any setting of the 5-position master temperature control. Thus I could have the freezer at -2 degrees and the refrigerator at 36 degrees, the freezer at +2 degrees and the refrigerator at 40 degrees, etc., by just changing the master temperature switch settings in accordance with whatever setting it took depending upon any particular outside temperature.

I have not contacted Norcold yet on this and I'm not sure whether the thermistor silder on a Norcold unit does the same thing as on other brands of refrigerator. Hence my question in this thread - just in case someone already had experience with this approach on a Norcold RV propane refrigerator.

I guess I did not explain it correctly. The FREEZER has NO way to control its temp. It will get to 0 to 10 degrees regardless of the Temp set. The design of an RV absorbsion refer is such that the Freezer coils are the FIRST coldest section of the tubes. Then it goes down to the lower refer section. This lower section is what is controlled by the tstat. Both Dometic and Norcold operate the exact same way. This is what confuses novices. They buy a used RV and the seller shows how COLD the freezer is and they assume the refer is at operating spec. They go home and then find that the lower section does NOT get below 40 degrees because the refer is partially blocked. A defective/blocked refer will still get the freezer below 10 degrees because the blockage is past the freezer coils. If you are having a problem with getting the freezer below 10 degrees, then you either have a incorrectly sealed cooling unit to the box or there is a lack of the correct amount of Transfer Mastic on the freezer coils. That is why I asked if the Cooling unit had ever been replaced. Long shot would be a defective freezer door seal, but those are rare. Doug