Refrigerator discussion & recommendations (Not residential)

[MamaGoose]

Hello,

We're new to RV'ing with a motorhome. Just purchased a pre-owned 2003 Fleetwood Revolution. I happened to find out about the recall on the Norcold 1200LRIM 4 door refrigerator, and we had the high temperature sensor installed 2 days ago at a dealership under the official recall. Fast forward to today, we're home from our trip and planning to park the rig for a few weeks. The refrigerator was running on Auto/LP. I removed everything from the fridge and, using the on/off button on the refrigerator, I turned it off. I heard it shut off, I actually heard the LP go out. Then we proceeded on to other things, like unpacking, having supper, and so forth. My husband gave the rig a wash and parked it in the shed. Walking by, he saw the glow of the red light from the sensor. He mentioned it to me and I said that shouldn't be on, it meant the high temp sensor had shut off the fridge (which hadn't been on in the first place) and we would be unable to start the fridge again unless we were able to reset the sensor. I went inside, tried turning it on...nothing. So the sensor is obviously faulty and we'll try resetting it. (This does make me wonder how trustworthy the sensor is, however, since there was no high temperature and no reason for it to trigger, and this is an issue I'll be taking up with the dealership who installed it and/or the Norcold rep I've been exchanging e-mails with. Probably best to have as much in writing as possible.) We don't have time to drive the 8 hour round trip to have the dealership install a new sensor at this time, but this will likely have to be done. (Unless they can ship it to us and we can swap it out ourselves?)

All of this has made me wonder, in the event that we do find it necessary to replace the refrigerator, if there is another brand anyone could recommend. We do need one that runs on LP or AC, since we do plan to do a fair bit of traveling with the motorhome and we want to have the option of boondocking. I know many new motorhomes are manufactured with residential refrigerators, but ours is not set up that way and apparently the modifications to do that would be quite expensive.

The 2003 5th wheel we had previous to this motorhome also had a Norcold fridge, but it was smaller and was not a part of this recall. I had it set at 3 and it worked great. In fact, I had to be careful where I placed the fresh produce because 3 was almost too cold but 2 was not quite cold enough. With the motorhome, however, I'm finding it has to be set at 7, and if it's on LP I need to set it at 8 or even 9. The weather has been very hot and humid where we've been. Is that normal for these refrigerators (Norcold 4 door 1200 models)? I would have expected better. It does occur to me that this refrigerator is old and may be near the end of its life expectancy.

[wa8yxm]

As others have said, Operate the magnetic switch to re-set the sensor.

RV fridges can be divided into basically three types.. The first of these has two major components and a few minor ones.

ABSORPTION COOLING UNITS (LP or lp/electric) There 2 major brands of these, Dometic and Norcold, and a third for JUST the cooling uint (Amish built) I am not sure but I would not be surprised to find the manufacturer of the cooling unit is the same for both N and D. Likewise burners and valves and heat elements (The lesser parts) The major difference is the control board and how they handled the recall (Norcold, though more of PITA (Pain in the Anatomy) did the better job I think). Frankly. I would not recommend one over the other. as I think they are both just about equal.

The next kind of RV Fridge is the residential.. These suck electricity, can not run on LP, now, compared to the Absorption units they are generally more efficient, but.. they still draw over 100 watts running.

High Effiency Compressor (Danfoss, SLING, and one other) Units, Both Dometic and Norcold have at least one offering in this class too.. I am sitting beside an Engel chest freezer that uses this technology (They call the compressor motor a "Sling Motor"... 36 watts.. The larger FRIDGE unit might draw 45 give or take a few... By comparison, a 1156 light bulb is around 26 watts.

NOT MUCH POWER: and that is what I would recommend.

[MamaGoose]

That fire extinguisher looks like a great idea. I am wondering if there is sufficient space behind our fridge, however.

Hubby and I went out and applied the strongest magnet we had to the box, and the light went out almost immediately. We have the refrigerator running on LP right now and we'll leave it for a few hours to see if everything is OK with that sensor. We are now looking at a way to shelter the kit a bit and still have good air circulation to the area as a whole. A windy, rainy day could knock our fridge out again, especially when we're in transit. Even parked, although the area is under the canopy, we wouldn't have our canopy out if it was storming.

I posted in a different thread about the recall kit, I think I'll post my picture of our sensor over there.

http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/21387244/gotomsg/27897656/p/1.cfm#27897656

[Gadget_Man]

2chiefsRus wrote:
Peace of Mind

Before we had our Norcold cooling unit replaced with the Amish Cooling Unit, we added one of the above to the outside compartment for the refrigerator. We are thinking of getting a couple more - one for the engine compartment and maybe one for the generator area.

Very good idea. I currently have one from Fire Fight Products. I won't need it after I install the Samsung.

Craig

[2chiefsRus]

Peace of Mind

Before we had our Norcold cooling unit replaced with the Amish Cooling Unit, we added one of the above to the outside compartment for the refrigerator. We are thinking of getting a couple more - one for the engine compartment and maybe one for the generator area.

[MamaGoose]

Wow, thank you, everyone, for your replies. Good information.

So I take it that Norcold and Dometic are the only brands that run LP?

We're not full time RV'ers just yet, so we don't want to do anything major with the fridge unless we absolutely have to. I do like to be prepared in case the fridge does fail completely, though, so we can make an educated decision at that point rather than deciding in haste.

It's been a hectic day, so we haven't had a chance to try a reset yet with a magnet, but I'm glad to have the information, thank you. It's too bad that water will make the sensor trip like that. People do wash their rigs, there are storms, RV's drive in rain. Oh well...I get the impression these sensors aren't exactly of the best quality, but I wouldn't want to bypass it either.

[Gadget_Man]

I was in your position four years ago. I ended up replacing my ailing Norcold cooling unit with an Amish built cooling unit like Dennis did. Like you, I decided not to go with a residential fridge. I wanted to retain the ability of running it off of propane. We rarely boondock, but I wanted to have that flexibility just in case. Here I am four years later and I now regret that decision. So much so, that I just ordered a Samsung fridge. If I had done this four years ago, I would've saved myself a lot of time and money.

Craig

[gemert]

Old-Biscuit wrote:
Hubby washed rig........got the box/wires wet.

Reset box using a strong magnet.
Place magnet over LED and move it make and forth.

X2, if you get water on the box with the red light you have to reset it with a strong magnet.

[Executive45]

I was in the 'save the Norcold' camp for many years....my wife loved it...so, when the cooling unit finally failed, we replaced it with the Amish unit. As you may know, the recall unit is to shut down the fridge if it overheats, so please don't bypass it..a fire could result.

The Amish cooling unit is not involved in the recall process. The walls of the Norcold cooling unit are not as thick so they are prone to fail as the coolant destroys the metal from within. I lived with the Amish unit for a couple years and found it to be superior to the Norcold. My issue was with the ice maker line. When it failed for the 3rd time, I pulled the Norcold and installed the residential....good luck...Dennis

[kalynzoo]

I've replaced the newly inserted safety "wart" twice on my Norcold. I have replaced the cooling coils, and the motherboard over the last 5 years. On my previous Dometic I needed to replace the door seals regularly, as the replacement seal in glue on and does not stay in the hot California climate. My friends with a TT cannot keep the Dometic at a temperature setting, it either freezes everything, including the milk and eggs, or it stays too warm. We are currently looking for a new motorhome...it's just time for us...and it will have a residential frig.
JMHO

[rexlion]

Another option might be to add solar panels to your rig and install a 12V DC fridge with Danfoss compressor, if they make one in the appropriate size and that you like.

[aztortuga]

Washing the rig and getting water into the refer vents on the access door will indeed turn the high temp switch off. Resetting the switch or replacing it will solve the problem until the next time water is sprayed onto the switch and it begins all over again. Been there---done that

[Ivylog]

Welcome to the forums and one of the most debated subjects, even though you put (Not residential). By using the advanced post option you could have made it (Not residential) but doubt even that would help.
Unfortunately I have spent more time than most on my 1200 partly because I forgot to turn it off when parked in our fairly steep driveway the night before leaving on a trip. By vibrating the coils when it stopped working over the next three years I was able to keep it working BUT not as cold as you really need. Finally replaced the cooling unit with a Armish cooling unit which has helped a bunch.
The Nocold recall/bandaid is a POS and you should have Revision D of it... yes there were A,B,C and D can be reset with a strong magnet because they turn off the reffer so often when there was not a over heat (800 degrees) in the burner area. The problem comes when it actually did it's job (not in your case) and someone resets it without monitoring the flue temps or smelling for ammonia behind the unit.
I've added a smoke alarm and a auto fire system behind my unit (before putting in the Amish cooling unit) as I've seen too many rigs that burned because of a fire that started behind the reffer and most were 1200.
This morning I'm going to install this MOD which is a much better way of protecting your reffer (and your rig) than the NoCool recall box. It is a thermal sensing unit that mounts on the boiler in the flue and shuts the unit off at 300 degrees and would have saved my unit from damage when I parked too far out of level. Yes I had a recall box on my unit at that time. This unit will restart on it's own once your unit cools down and the display lets you know it shut your unit down.
OP, at this point I feel the ARP mod is what I would spend my money on to protect your 1200 as it's not a dumb bandaid like even the Rev D.

[John_S_]

Oh and the modification to fit a residential on my coach was less then a new cooling unit.

[John_S_]

Not that you want to do it but a residential in a motorhome works fine for traveling. The issue with any newer unit us that the EPA has mandated less sodium chromate in the cooling unit. This means they are more likely to fail sooner. This is what protects the walls of the cooling unit against corrosion. We never had a rash of issue with refers in my early days on this forum and now we do. Your choice but look at the reasons and the ease of use and the safety involved.