Residential Fridge Not Cooling, In Fact Hot.

[thirtydaZe]

We just made it back home yesterday after an 11 day trip. After arriving home my wife went i to the camper and said the fridges isnt on. At that stage i hadn't gotten around ro plugging the fw in. Then in came to me, it should be on, i went and checked my inverter, and although it was in the on position it wasnt running.

I unplugged it, plugged it in and hit the power button, and all was well, fridge was on.

About 2 hours later i went out to do some work, and opened the fridge to find it was lukewarm. I figured the door hadnt been closed, and didnt think much more of it.

Last night i walked out there to check it, and though the fridge lights are on, the fridge was warm, in fact i could feel heat radiating out of it. The inside side pannel of the door was alost hot to the touch.

Im at a loss as to what the problem is, and while i plan to shut it all down when i get home and see if something resets, my fear is it has quit on me.

[westend]

thirtydaZe wrote:
Well on a side note i disconnected the rv from shore power, turned the inverter off and disconnected the battery, then plugged everything back in. Right now it appears the fridge is back up and running.

Assuming it cools to regular aperating temp without issue, whats causing these problems? At the beginning of the season, our first trip out, the fridge wouldnt even turn on after being in storage. I believe i had to unplug everything as i just did. Seems to be a reset?

I'm not really clear on the sequence of connection events but if the fridge is only tripping on inverter supplied power, the first suspect would be an under-voltage situation causing the inverter to trip. If you later came back and reset the inverter and the battery had a chance to charge, the same sequence may repeat.

Have you measured the battery voltage when this fridge event occurs?
What do you have for batteries and what inverter?

[rk911]

thirtydaZe wrote:
Well on a side note i disconnected the rv from shore power, turned the inverter off and disconnected the battery, then plugged everything back in. Right now it appears the fridge is back up and running.

Assuming it cools to regular aperating temp without issue, whats causing these problems? At the beginning of the season, our first trip out, the fridge wouldnt even turn on after being in storage. I believe i had to unplug everything as i just did. Seems to be a reset?

you disconnected from shore power, powered off the inverter (which should have powered down the fridge), disconnected the battery (one battery???) and then plugged everything back in (so the inverter is off and the battery out of the line, right). seems to me that there are several suspects...

- the single? battery is not enough to power the fridge.

- the single? battery IS enough to power the fridge but it is bad and should be replaced. has it been tested?

- the inverter is not working as it should (are other 120-VAC appliances working as properly off the inverter? TV, microwave, etc.)

[thirtydaZe]

Well on a side note i disconnected the rv from shore power, turned the inverter off and disconnected the battery, then plugged everything back in. Right now it appears the fridge is back up and running.

Assuming it cools to regular aperating temp without issue, whats causing these problems? At the beginning of the season, our first trip out, the fridge wouldnt even turn on after being in storage. I believe i had to unplug everything as i just did. Seems to be a reset?

[rk911]

thirtydaZe wrote:
We just made it back home yesterday after an 11 day trip. After arriving home my wife went i to the camper and said the fridges isnt on. At that stage i hadn't gotten around ro plugging the fw in. Then in came to me, it should be on, i went and checked my inverter, and although it was in the on position it wasnt running.

I unplugged it, plugged it in and hit the power button, and all was well, fridge was on.

About 2 hours later i went out to do some work, and opened the fridge to find it was lukewarm. I figured the door hadnt been closed, and didnt think much more of it.

Last night i walked out there to check it, and though the fridge lights are on, the fridge was warm, in fact i could feel heat radiating out of it. The inside side pannel of the door was alost hot to the touch.

Im at a loss as to what the problem is, and while i plan to shut it all down when i get home and see if something resets, my fear is it has quit on me.

had a similar problem with the freezer portion of our res fridge during our spring trip. turned out the freezer section temp sensor was partially blocked. i rearranged a few packages and all was well.

[westend]

thirtydaZe wrote:
Yes, it is plugged into shore power. Initially i had unplugged the inverter and plugged it back it in, that got the fridge to at least turn back on.

Im assuming the fridge has failed, simply because this camper is starting to seem cursed.

So this is our 2nd season with the fw, its literally been in our possession for about 1 year, bought new, what causes a residential to fail so quickly?

Just to eliminate a host of other connection issues, I'd suggest to plug the fridge directly into an outlet that you know to be good, outside of your FW. IOW, connect it with an extension cord into your garage or home power pedestal. A good idea is to also connect a light into the same receptacle. If the device trips the circuit breaker, the light will, of course, go out.

[lawnspecialties]

So now to my question I posed a few months back: If it has to be replaced, do you have a way of getting it out?

[Chris_Bryant]

It could be stuck on defrost- my sisters' house refrigerator did that. Hers was not a cheap fix, but it isn't a cheap refrigerator.

[thirtydaZe]

Yes, it is plugged into shore power. Initially i had unplugged the inverter and plugged it back it in, that got the fridge to at least turn back on.

Im assuming the fridge has failed, simply because this camper is starting to seem cursed.

So this is our 2nd season with the fw, its literally been in our possession for about 1 year, bought new, what causes a residential to fail so quickly?

[westend]

If you have it connected to shore power, chances are the fridge has failed.

When asking for technical advice for situations like this, it is better to list the equipment by brand and model numbers. We have no clue what you have there. What inverter? What batteries? What fridge? Connected to shore power or not?

"I unplugged it, plugged it in and hit the power button, and all was well, fridge was on." Fridge, inverter, shore cord?

[thirtydaZe]

ScottG wrote:
Is its fan running?

It sure sounded to be last night. This morning it sounded like something was maybe moving then stopping, however it wasn't reminiscent of a fan spinning, more like something was trying to get adjusted into place.

[ScottG]

Is its fan running?