Dometic Refrigerators

(Knock on wood), I'm happy with my gas absorption fridge. It may not chill food as fast as a compressor fridge, but it works well on propane. I'm not planning to change anytime soon, and I definitely would buy a rig with the same model. Only quibble is that I don't like the slobber tube and the need for airing position cards to keep the doors ajar when not in use.

It is too bad that there were a few bad models that wrecked peoples RV's and the perception of these fridges .

There have been millions of gas absorption fridges made and most of them were just fine.

I feel bad for the people that lost their rigs but, I love my gas absorption fridge.

Sorry for those that have had these type of issues, but our Dometic has impressed me with it's continued reliability over the 9 years that we have owned our current RV. From 10 degrees to 100 degrees and from sea level to 9K' our unit has kept temps within proper operating range.

I hope those with such severe problems are fully compensated although I have no plans to change from absorption type fridges now or in any future rig. We primarily camp off the grid for weeks at a time and love the convenience this technology provides under these scenarios.

Going to keep using mine, ice chests just aren't handy.

SoundGuy wrote:

Ranger Smith wrote:
It is about time someone addressed this problem and made them accountable.Dometic Refrigerator

I'm confused ... according to the article you linked to a class action lawsuit has been filed so isn't what you're asking already a "fait accompli" ? :h

Ok, Sometimes when someone says "It's about time" they mean "Finally, somebody is doing something" I get the feeling that was the O/P's intent..
With that... My dometic is 11 years old next month. No fire save the one that is supposed to be there when it's supposed to be there.

I think 12 V refrigerators are the way to go. The Mfg's could take the difference in price from the current absorption models and the compressor model and put half that difference into better insulation. The result would be an efficient reefer without the propane fuss.

My unmodded 120V dorm fridge draws 80W in operation at a 1/4 duty cycle. The 12V compressor models draw much less. I've read reference to 4 amps. In the ideal world (at the same duty cycle), that would be 24 AH/day.

Of course, not everyone would choose a smaller, more efficient unit. Some folks would need water and ice in the door or other size/amenities. That would certainly raise the capacity needed to operate the reefer. However, the advent of solar power has increased battery charging function greatly.

There are 12-volt compressor RV refrigerators (Dometic?) and Atwood makes a non-flammable helium based absorption fridge. There are safer alternatives other than residential fridges, although not in a wide variety sizes.

horton333 wrote:
Currently there is little competition, even a custom designed electric fridge I think would be a great opportunity even if only partly addressing the core problem of the lack of competition.

I agree that an electric fridge would be an ideal solution and there are 3 or 4 manufacturers working that angle including the two giants in the RV supplier side - Norcold and Dometic. The problem though is trying to balance capacity and power consumption that satisfies RV owners from those who always camp with full hookups to those of us who primarily dry camp. Obviously improved fridge efficiency, bigger or better battery banks and higher performing or more solar are needed to address the needs of dry campers. I think they're getting there though and we may be only a couple years aways from electric fridges being the norm for RVs.

A comment (or two). You can see the actual lawsuit here (a pdf file).
It's pretty interesting that in the lawsuit they use an illustration lifted from my website- you can see the picture on this snapshot from 2001 (!) on archive.org-
https://web.archive.org/web/20010710024946/http://www.bryantrv.com/reefer.html

Notice my text references the numbers I put in the picture.

There are some real problems with the lawsuit, which sounds like a "throw it all at the wall and see what sticks" type of thing.

Currently there is little competition, even a custom designed electric fridge I think would be a great opportunity even if only partly addressing the core problem of the lack of competition.