Leveling a Fridge while on the Road

Well, this subject seems nearly as passionate as the syn vs. dino oil question.

In my experience (30 plus years, 4 fridges) not yet having a failure of this nature I will continue as I have been. I level at the campsite. That's all.

Often spend 2-4 days in transit and parking overnight with fridge running non-stop. I never leveled the trailers when overnight parked and hardly ever do the moho either, even though it's much more convenient.

With the Norcold the side to side is the more critical at 3 degrees of tilt. Front to back (or side to side for an RV) the tilt can be as much as 6 degrees.

I bought an inexpensive digital level when I was having problems with our fridge and found that with 4 degrees of tilt side to side the fridge was shutting off.

dougrainer wrote:

pnichols wrote:
FWIW, we can't stand to camp in our rig out of level enough to affect our absorption refrigerator. We are far more picky on levelness than the refrigerator.

At home in storage, the RV is also kept very level during times we run the refrigerator.

Norcold Customer Service told me out-of-level running for short periods had no effect on long term reliability of our refrigerator. What I DID NOTICE on the rare times we parked for a bit too far out of level was that the refrigerator could not maintain it's temperature ... the interior temperature would start to rise.

Get Norcold to put that statement in WRITING. As always, statements are subject to FACTS. What determines Short periods???? Some may think a few hours(bad), while Norcold meant a few minutes(less than 30 minutes). ANYTIME an Absorbsion refer is run out of spec level, it WILL cause a very very small problem. It accumulates over years. You never notice the affects of the times you went off level until it builds up and then one day the refer does not perform to expectations. Then you wonder why. The reason your refer started to rise was because the coolant was not circulating correctly and was starting the very small blockage. IF you parked long enough to notice a temp rise, you were NOT parked for a "short Period" of time. Doug

What are your credentials in the area of absorption fridges? You make very bold statements about how serious the problems are and yet it seems to be a pretty rare problem. Yes, some people have had problems, but nowhere near as many as a person would think if your statements were wholly true.

Personally I think there could be a problem if you're seriously out of level, but I honestly don't know. The only thing I know for sure is there is a fair amount of visions of gloom and doom if your fridge is out of level for any amount of time at all.

But there are posters who come in and say their fridges work fine after umpteen years of not paying much attention to out of level conditions at all. I still think the number of fridges that don't work would be much higher if it was as serious a problem as some seem to think it is.

We parked off-level for around 3 hours. The Norcold representative knew this and said no harm was done and the refrigerator would continue to act and run normally afterwards.

This happened around 3-4 years ago and the refrigerator continues to act and run normally. We use the Norcold refrigerator on a setting of "3", so as it starts to age (our RV is a 2005 model) over time, we can migrate up to the setting of "4", and later on to the setting of "5" to counteract aging affects in order to maintain it's as-new cooling performance. We have thermometers in both the freezer and fresh food sections so as to keep a close eye on it's perfromance at all times.

I'm a great fan of propane absorption refrigerators that are properly installed so as to provide good exterior vertical convection ventilation (as Winnebago did in our RV model) and are properly used by their owners. It's a great invention and was a major step in the direction of minimizing electricity needs for drycamping and boondock camping. We are not hookup-centric or large-array solar campers and never will be, so an absorption process refrigerator is just the ticket.

pnichols wrote:
FWIW, we can't stand to camp in our rig out of level enough to affect our absorption refrigerator. We are far more picky on levelness than the refrigerator.

At home in storage, the RV is also kept very level during times we run the refrigerator.

Norcold Customer Service told me out-of-level running for short periods had no effect on long term reliability of our refrigerator. What I DID NOTICE on the rare times we parked for a bit too far out of level was that the refrigerator could not maintain it's temperature ... the interior temperature would start to rise.

Get Norcold to put that statement in WRITING. As always, statements are subject to FACTS. What determines Short periods???? Some may think a few hours(bad), while Norcold meant a few minutes(less than 30 minutes). ANYTIME an Absorbsion refer is run out of spec level, it WILL cause a very very small problem. It accumulates over years. You never notice the affects of the times you went off level until it builds up and then one day the refer does not perform to expectations. Then you wonder why. The reason your refer started to rise was because the coolant was not circulating correctly and was starting the very small blockage. IF you parked long enough to notice a temp rise, you were NOT parked for a "short Period" of time. Doug

FWIW, we can't stand to camp in our rig out of level enough to affect our absorption refrigerator. We are far more picky on levelness than the refrigerator.

At home in storage, the RV is also kept very level during times we run the refrigerator.

Norcold Customer Service told me out-of-level running for short periods had no effect on long term reliability of our refrigerator. What I DID NOTICE on the rare times we parked for a bit too far out of level was that the refrigerator could not maintain it's temperature ... the interior temperature would start to rise.

One of the concerns was addressed by the adbsorbtion type refrigerators. They wouldn't like be on a 30 degree slop very long.
The ups and owns and side to side going down the road doesn't seem to bother them at all.
A lof of RVs are now using residential type refrigerators. I remember the instructions with our former one was it had to sit for pretty long period of time for refrigerant to settle and the tank.
Don't know how they are wroking out but it must be pretty good as they are installing more and more of them.

Horizon170 wrote:
Someone mentioned that no RV has a compressor type fridge-----WRONG----I do and I believe several others do. With mine I never worry about it running off level. I go up some tall inclines/roads at times.
I believe the absorption run out of tolerance won't kill the refer, just keep it from working properly way off level. Once you are back level I think the ammonia or whatever will drain back properly and the refer resume normal operation. I HAVE BEEN WRONG BEFORE THOUGH. :)
Marvin

And you are wrong again. Reading is fundamental!

pnichols wrote:
FWIW, I sure wish someone would offer RV propane absorption refrigerators with either the entire refrig mounted on gimbals or it's sensitive innards mounted on gimbals.

Don't some ocean-going sailboats have their propane refrigerators mounted on gimbals?

I was thinking the same thing until I envisioned how much of my precious storage space would be taken away because of the swing.

FWIW, I sure wish someone would offer RV propane absorption refrigerators with either the entire refrig mounted on gimbals or it's sensitive innards mounted on gimbals.

Don't some ocean-going sailboats have their propane refrigerators mounted on gimbals?