refer

Guess what? I was thinking how to hook a inverter when I remembered seeing 2 wires coming thru the wall where the refer is plugged in with wire nuts on them. Turned on my 12 volt system and checked voltage. 12volt. Perfect place for a inverter. Getting happier by the minute.

Gale Hawkins wrote:

kansanforlife wrote:
Put it on ac setting 7 hrs ago and it is down to -12 in freezer and +31 in box. Its raining here with temp of 73 and humidity of 95. Can I leave it hooked up and try the 12volt system?

Well you know your cooling unit on AC can meet required low temps for a hot summer day. loving retirement answered your 12v question well.

You could do what I do and when on the road operate on AC by using an inverter. The DC position will not hold an acceptable temp in the fridge section, in the propane position I know my flame will be blown out when driving so I operate on AC. While I have a 1,800 watt inverter, any small inverter rated at 250 watts or larger should work for you.

kansanforlife wrote:
Put it on ac setting 7 hrs ago and it is down to -12 in freezer and +31 in box. Its raining here with temp of 73 and humidity of 95. Can I leave it hooked up and try the 12volt system?

Well you know your cooling unit on AC can meet required low temps for a hot summer day. loving retirement answered your 12v question well.

Loving retirement, say I had the temp where it is now and I went on a 8 hour trip. Which would be best to put refer on, propane or 12 v?

kansanforlife wrote:
Put it on ac setting 7 hrs ago and it is down to -12 in freezer and +31 in box. Its raining here with temp of 73 and humidity of 95. Can I leave it hooked up and try the 12volt system?

The 12VDC position on the fridge is only good to maintain existing temps such as you currently have (-12, +31). The 12VDC operation on most fridges will only maintain the current temp if you are LUCKY since the heating element for 120VAC operation is 170 watts but the 12VDC heating element is only 120 watts. Using the 12VDC position in a hot climate many see an increase in the fridge temp over a period of time.

Put it on ac setting 7 hrs ago and it is down to -12 in freezer and +31 in box. Its raining here with temp of 73 and humidity of 95. Can I leave it hooked up and try the 12volt system?

Gale Hawkins is absolutely correct. I just now noticed the location of the OP and our part of the country is under a big ole miserable high pressure system with high temps and high humidity. You will find much better performance in times of lower outside temps. Nothing works well at these high temperatures........including us.

Sounds like you have it going your way now. Update us on the low point temps. I have never seen any gains after three days of solid running at the max setting.

We saw like one degree rise in each box temps on our two door unit for every three degree rise in air temps say over 70F. Our freezer would hit like -10F at 70F but at 100F degrees it would rise to Zero. This is why a frig that will only get down to 40F on a 70F day will hit like 50F on a 100F day. This is just the nature of the technology. Cost to operate RV frig vs new type home model we learned is about 8X higher for the one in the RV. When it came time to replace the one in our house we got one 6 cubic feet larger and stopped used the one in the RV as a back up frig. It used less power than the that was 28 years old plus the savings of turning off the one in the RV. That being said I prefer on that will operate on propane since the MH is a back up home should we need it. A full tank of propane should should give us 4+ months of frig only time if we will run the generator or about as check just run the 454 for a fast recharge of house batteries so we have 12 vdc for the frig controls.

Well, took the advice from you guys and cleaned it up the best I could. Cleaned the jet and flu, got some rust out. Started it back up on propane 6hrs ago. Freezer down to zero, box down to 50. A friend loaned me a fan to put in there. Will check it in a couple of hours.

Good idea to remove clean, etc because you will want to do that even if you need a cooling unit. Small units are easier to work with too. :)

I think it was 2010 when we replaced our cooling unit. It had started like yours where the freezer would not go Zero F then the leak started about the same time but it had the ammonia leak for about a year before it got bad enough the rest of the family could smell it. The funny part was the smell got so bad from the leak but it was still cooling some.

When you hear a gurgling sound from the cooling unit you know it is shot because you have lost much of the 350 PSI that is normal PSI in a RV frig. The water in it will not boil if the PSI is high.

RV Doctor info.