Refridgerator replacement

[Veebyes]

Currently have a Dometic 4 door, 13cu ft?, fridge. It is working fine but want to keep one step ahead of the game if it suddenly decides to go AWOL.

I have pretty much decided to go the route of getting a domestic fridge if & when the Dometic dies. The one I have is a replacement on the original & was near $5000 installed after #1 died.

Don't want to go down that road again.

We occasionally dry camp. Already have a more than capable pure sine wave inverter charger & have about 220amps on the AGM 4D battery.

The biggest concern is the size, specifically the depth since with slide in the left door is very close to hard up against drawers of island type galley.

Samsung has a french door styled fridge that might fit. Any other suggestions?

[wa8yxm]

When the current unit goes there are basically three or four sections
The cooling unit. This is the "Major" part and if it fails I'd go with an Amish Built unit to replace it

Elecronics (2 sub assemblies) easily replaced. though a common issue is bad connecrtions on the connecting cables I have seen that twice (once personally) Cost to fix (Unplug and replug several timnes both ends) ZERO!!!!

Burner and gas control valve
Electric heat element.

Now many have talked about the "Dangers" of an absorption heat unit (Slight fire danger) Hailer just recalled some of their Refrigerators (Residential type) Seems they have had reports of them CATCHING FIRE.. Yup.. A serious case of replacing the frying pan with ... Another frying pan.

There is a slight size advantage with residential and they are more efficient on 120v (But do not run at all on propane).

Both Dometic and norcold made if they do not make all electric HIGH EFFIENCY units. about 30 to 40 watts running. door closed. add about 50% when you open the door (The light draws that much power).

[wa8yxm]

When the current unit goes there are basically three or four sections
The cooling unit. This is the "Major" part and if it fails I'd go with an Amish Built unit to replace it

Elecronics (2 sub assemblies) easily replaced. though a common issue is bad connecrtions on the connecting cables I have seen that twice (once personally) Cost to fix (Unplug and replug several timnes both ends) ZERO!!!!

Burner and gas control valve
Electric heat element.

Now many have talked about the "Dangers" of an absorption heat unit (Slight fire danger) Hailer just recalled some of their Refrigerators (Residential type) Seems they have had reports of them CATCHING FIRE.. Yup.. A serious case of replacing the frying pan with ... Another frying pan.

There is a slight size advantage with residential and they are more efficient on 120v (But do not run at all on propane).

Both Dometic and norcold made if they do not make all electric HIGH EFFIENCY units. about 30 to 40 watts running. door closed. add about 50% when you open the door (The light draws that much power).

[jplante4]

Dometic AC/DC compressor fridge. We got this in the store last fall. Hooked it up to a 12v group 24 RV Marine battery and it ran for 40 hours.

click

[fj12ryder]

ScottG wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:

ScottG wrote:
Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

Sure wish they would have put some prices on those conversions. When they don't price that stuff I always figure it's one of those "If you have to ask..." situations.

That's strange, they used to have prices but I don't see them anymore.
A while back I called them and asked if they had an application for my fridge (they only list the 4 door Norcold) and was told they have applications for every popular model. They just haven't updated the site yet.
IIRC, prices were between $650 (AC) and $800 (DC).

Thanks, that's gives me a fair idea what it would cost.

[tewitt1949]

I just replaced mine with a house fridge. So far so good.

[ScottG]

fj12ryder wrote:

ScottG wrote:
Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

Sure wish they would have put some prices on those conversions. When they don't price that stuff I always figure it's one of those "If you have to ask..." situations.

That's strange, they used to have prices but I don't see them anymore.
A while back I called them and asked if they had an application for my fridge (they only list the 4 door Norcold) and was told they have applications for every popular model. They just haven't updated the site yet.
IIRC, prices were between $650 (AC) and $800 (DC).

[fj12ryder]

ScottG wrote:
Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

Sure wish they would have put some prices on those conversions. When they don't price that stuff I always figure it's one of those "If you have to ask..." situations.

[Veebyes]

My original Dometic sprung leaks in the coil. It was barely out of warranty. The cost to repair was about $1000 less than replacement so we replaced. The new one has 2 cooling fans & has outlasted the original by a long way already.

I bookmarked JC Refridgeration & will be giving them a call. My unit is currently is storage, nothing plugged in, & I won't be seeing it again till April next year.

[garyemunson]

What failed on your last Dometic? Sure seems like lots of gas fridges get removed for not cooling well when the problem is only poor ventilation. Over the years had many gas fridges that lasted 10+ years. Found in humid climates it was best to leave the RV plugged in and the fridge on. Keeping the coils hot seemed to help keep them from rusting and springing a leak. The weak spot always seemed to be the welds on the coils. A little surface rust would dig into the shallow areas of the weld and cause a leak. Had much better luck with our older rigs prior to slides. When the fridge was able to have a overhead vent through the roof, it got much better air flow and stayed cooler in hot weather. Now that most fridges are in slides, it's more of a challenge to keep the air in the back of the fridge cool. In my decades of RVing I've never seen any gas fridge that slowly went bad. That type of symptom usually meant some sort of ventilation problem with the back of the fridge, often a failed sensor for cooling fans, a bad fan, or a displaced shroud. They cool the same until the gas leaks out and even the tiniest of holes will dump the entire charge of hydrogen gas (the smallest element) overnight.



This is what I've done on our latest coach... So far the modification has worked well, this next summer will be the real test but I'm confident I've solved my problem. Other gas fridges I had with overhead vents cooled just fine no matter how hot it got outside so I'm sure poor performance is almost always a venting issue.

https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/29770712.cfm

[ScottG]

Veebyes wrote:

ScottG wrote:
Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

Was not aware of this option. The Samsung appears to be at least 4" deeper than the Dometic installed. No way I have that much space with slide in.

Will have to think about the mod. Just so happens & can make a detour without much of a problem to them next summer.

One of the projects I plan on doing this winter is to reinstall our fridge to the exact spec's written by Norcold. The manufacturers doesn't pay much attention to them and I can see some of the clearances are wrong.
If that doesn't make the mediocre performance of its cooling unit work better, I will install one of the 12VDC compressor units.

[Veebyes]

ScottG wrote:
Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

Was not aware of this option. The Samsung appears to be at least 4" deeper than the Dometic installed. No way I have that much space with slide in.

Will have to think about the mod. Just so happens & can make a detour without much of a problem to them next summer.

[ScottG]

Another option.. This company: JC refridgeration makes conversion cooling units for your fridge that turn it into a normal compressor type cooling unit. They come in either 12VDC or 120VAC.
That way you can keep exactly what you have and have the power and reliability of a residential fridge.

[dougrainer]

Stay away from Samsung. OEM's have dropped Samsung because finding a Service Center that will work on Samsung refers IN RV's is difficult to find. I live in the DFW Texas area(VERY large area) and we cannot get any Samsung Authorized Service people to come work on Samsung in RV's. Not a problem if you expect to have NO problems under the Samsun warranty, but a big problem if it does malfunction. Remember, you disassemble both the Dometic interior doors and door brackets to remove the refer. You do the same to the Residential when installing it, so it does free up some space. Just make sure you do NOT have a curved roof in the refer cabinet where the interior roof meets the sidewall. The top of the Residential will probably hit that curved spot and you cannot get it in that last 1 to 2 inches. The last one I had that did that, I had enough space to notch out that part of the interior roof to get the refer all the way in. Doug

[pianotuna]

Hi,

If your pocket book can stand it get a unit that runs on 12 volts--that eliminates the 12% loss of energy that even a good inverter offers.