Non-Frozen Food Items in Freezer Compartment

[Grey_Mountain]

Please refresh my aging memory cells as to the proper way to start and operate my refrigerator.
1. Turn the unit on at least one day before planned use.
2. Freezer unit will cool down first, then the other compartment.
3. If possile, food to be placed in the freezer should alredy be frozen if possible.
4. Food in the other compartment should already be cooled down if possible.
This does not seem possible or feasible. I can see that ideally foods should be frozen already or cooled down already.
What am I missing except I'm not as smart as I used to be.
Could be that I wasn't very smart to start with too...


GM

[Chum_lee]

It would be helpful to understand that temperature is not the same thing as heat.

Heat is a quantity. Temperature is a relative condition of that quantity.


Why is that important? Because absorption refrigerators are very efficient. The freezer couldn't get to 0F if they weren't. It just takes a while to get there since they can't remove heat very quickly.

Chum lee

[time2roll]

I have done less and less of the precooling as my trailer is out at a storage lot. I just start the fridge, transfer items from the cooler and roll out direct from storage. An ice cream bar may not make it intact but I have no issues generally. All seems fine upon arrival at camp.

OK to precool also if needed. Your list sequence is fine.

Any items that are not pre-cooled can stay in the box until the next morning to reduce the burden to keep the perishables cold.

[JaxDad]

I do a LOT of short trips and have this down pat. I use large soda bottles, emptied and refilled with water.

I put 8 of them in the chest freezer in the Sticks & Bricks.

When I'm getting ready to head out I put on the refer and load 2 of the frozen bottles in the freezer section and the other 6 in the refer section.

I'll often leave a couple in the fridge so I have cold drinking water on the road.

[mgirardo]

We never bothered with step 1, but 2, 3 and 4 are what we did. We kept our unit in storage, so we would usually bring the Motorhome home the morning before we left to pack up. Usually the refrigerator was the first thing turned on and then loaded (but not overloaded) with already frozen and cooled food. We would also take a 1 gallon covered pitcher and fill it completely with ice. Then add water until the pitcher was filled with ice water. This went into the lower section to aid in cooling.

We usually drove 3 to 5 hours to a camp site and the refrigerator and freezer were usually plenty cold when we arrived.

-Michael

[SidecarFlip]

If it's good for an Amishman, it's good for a Yankee.... Maybe.

[2edgesword]

RV refrigerators are not the most efficient with respect to cooling so any room temperature food put into the refrigerator is going to take a long time to cool down.

On a recent trip I started the refrigerator two days before we were leaving. After 24 yours the freezer was about 5 degrees and the refrigerator compartment at 35 degrees.

The day we are leaving I check the refrigerator compartment and it's 65 degrees??? I'm wondering "what the heck is going on". Well it turns out my wife had purchased take-out for that evenings meal and it was still warm when she put it into the refrigerator. This wouldn't have been a problem in a residential refrigerator (much faster heat exchange) but took hours to get the temperature back down below 45 degrees in the RV refrigerator. Fortunately it wasn't 8 or 12 hours since the other food in the frig was already pretty cold.

[BFL13]

Thanks, Doug

[dougrainer]

BFL13 wrote:

dougrainer wrote:
Your thought process is OK. The reason you put frozen items in and chilled items in is to NOT make the refer work longer and harder to keep things cold. BOTH the freezer and lower chill at the SAME time. It is just the freezer will get to below 10 degrees faster than the lower section, because that is the FIRST coldest section of the cooling unit. Remember, COLD is the absence of HEAT. The refer removes HEAT from the items, hence cold items result. Doug

Is there a sequence to that? Say your lower fridge gets to proper cool and you put warm stuff in the freezer. Will that warm up the lower fridge part, or have no effect on that, but just make work for the freezer part?

RV Ammonia units, the tstat ONLY controls the lower section. That added freezer warm items will not cause the Lower section to warm up. It will warm the freezer and the freezer will slowly remove the heat from the added items and then get to 10 degrees or lower. Doug

[BFL13]

dougrainer wrote:
Your thought process is OK. The reason you put frozen items in and chilled items in is to NOT make the refer work longer and harder to keep things cold. BOTH the freezer and lower chill at the SAME time. It is just the freezer will get to below 10 degrees faster than the lower section, because that is the FIRST coldest section of the cooling unit. Remember, COLD is the absence of HEAT. The refer removes HEAT from the items, hence cold items result. Doug

Is there a sequence to that? Say your lower fridge gets to proper cool and you put warm stuff in the freezer. Will that warm up the lower fridge part, or have no effect on that, but just make work for the freezer part?

[Grey_Mountain]

OK. Thanks. We are leaving tomorrow, turned the unit on two days ago. Both freezer unit and other part are where they should be. Started loading already frozen goods and already cooled items today.

GM

[Ava]

I turn mine on for at least a few hours befor loading. As you say, load with frozen and cooled items from home fridge when possible. It is just another fridge so you can load it how you like.

[dougrainer]

Your thought process is OK. The reason you put frozen items in and chilled items in is to NOT make the refer work longer and harder to keep things cold. BOTH the freezer and lower chill at the SAME time. It is just the freezer will get to below 10 degrees faster than the lower section, because that is the FIRST coldest section of the cooling unit. Remember, COLD is the absence of HEAT. The refer removes HEAT from the items, hence cold items result. Doug

[GordonThree]

Your list looks good to me, only addition would be to set the temperature control to coldest possible.

If it's been a while since using the fridge you could check the flu for blockage, such as a wasp, bird or mouse nest.

Some report using LP mode provides greater cooling.