Refrigerator Repair/Replacement

[Grey_Mountain]

Looks like our fridge is belly up. Getting a code "cooling unit" problem.
Taking it in for repairs next week.
A replacement runs from $3000/$4000. If just the cooling unit is bad, replacement is around $1200 or so.
If I have to replace the entire thing, I am considering going back with a residential refrigerator of the same size. What are the pros and cons of this? Of course, I would have nor refrigertor unless on shore power or genertor.

GM

[Jim]

I am very happy I'd already finished my root beer float when I read this one:

When it comes to mechanical and electrical things, I am a really good carpenter.

GM

Otherwise it would be all over my keyboard.

[Grey_Mountain]

C.B. wrote:
I have a working Dometic french door that came out of my Cedar Creek.

If interested PM me.


C.B.

Good idea, escept you are 1032.1 miles north/northeast of me. 🙂

[Grey_Mountain]

dougrainer wrote:

Grey Mountain wrote:
"Belly up" means no workee. On the fritz. Kaput. Cooling unit has stopped cooling.

This is a NORCOLD 1200L RIMD in a 2006 Fleetwood Discovery.
Error code as mentioned above is

no co

in small letters.
Owners manual says this means "cooling unit has stopped cooling."

There is a reset procedure, which I tried, to no avail. Manual says if one reset does not work, a second reset is not possible.

GM

1. The reset IS possible and can be done. By someone that knows how to do it
2. Cooling unit has stopped cooling. THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT IS BAD. NO CO is a cooling unit protection trip. If you are unlevel or you have blocked/poor ventilation, that can destroy a cooling unit. So, Norcolds have a NO CO protection. That means if the Cooling unit cannot do a proper cool down, it trips the NO CO and shuts the refer down. You have ONE TRY to reset. You turn the refer OFF for a few seconds and turn back on. IF YOU HAVE NOT FOUND AND CORRECTED THE NO CO PROBLEM, IT TRIPS THE 2ND "NO CO". That locks out the controls and you have to do a hard reset, then find and fix the problem that caused a NO CO. Now, if the CU is indeed bad, that also will cause a NO CO, but odds are it is another problem causing it. Doug

I saw that you can reset once, then it will lock itself out. So it's to the experts for me. Don't think we did anything any differently than we normally do. We usually run the generator for coach AC and of course the fridge. If not, it automatically switches to LP. Last trip, it did not switch to LP. When we got to our destination and connected to shore power, it worked fine. Left there and headed home, would not work on either LP or generator; however, when we stopped for the night, it worked on shore power. Got home and it won't work on anything, and that's when I got the code. So to the shop.
When it comes to mechanical and electrical things, I am a really good carpenter.

GM

[BFL13]

" With a couple more batts and maybe 200 watts more solar I don't think I'd ever have to run the genny. "

That's because, "It never rains in Southern California". In the real world 🙂 solar is not that reliable, so a res fridge is a nail-biter for keeping the batts up. Propane means no nail biting off grid.

You choose depending on your scenario for off-grid locations and time of year.

[htwheelz67]

I'll never go back to an rv fridge, I went from an 8 cu ft dometic to an 11 cu ft whirlpool (with an ice maker)in my weekend warrior toyhauler. I had to trim a little to make it fit but it gets cold in an hour, uses very little power and its huge inside and again I have an icemaker (connected to my RO system) I have 200 watts of solar. 2 6v batts and a 1200 watt pure sine wave inverter. I've dry camped for 4 days at a time with no problems, I'll sometimes run the genny at night for a couple hours which I do anyways just to top off the batts but even if you don't and even shut the fridge off for 8hrs it stays cold if you don't open it all the time. With a couple more batts and maybe 200 watts more solar I don't think I'd ever have to run the genny. I think I spent under 700.00 for the firdge,icemaker and inverter and the fridge has rear coils, it does stick out a bit furthur than the dometic but not an issue.

[drsteve]

Grey Mountain wrote:

dougrainer wrote:
There is NO code for a bad cooling unit on ANY RV refer. Doug

Error code

no co (small letters)

Owners manual says this means "cooling unit has stopped cooling."

GM

I believe what Doug is saying is that the code doesn't tell you why it's not cooling. Could be a number of reasons other than a bad cooling unit.

[dougrainer]

Grey Mountain wrote:
"Belly up" means no workee. On the fritz. Kaput. Cooling unit has stopped cooling.

This is a NORCOLD 1200L RIMD in a 2006 Fleetwood Discovery.
Error code as mentioned above is

no co

in small letters.
Owners manual says this means "cooling unit has stopped cooling."

There is a reset procedure, which I tried, to no avail. Manual says if one reset does not work, a second reset is not possible.

GM

1. The reset IS possible and can be done. By someone that knows how to do it
2. Cooling unit has stopped cooling. THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT IS BAD. NO CO is a cooling unit protection trip. If you are unlevel or you have blocked/poor ventilation, that can destroy a cooling unit. So, Norcolds have a NO CO protection. That means if the Cooling unit cannot do a proper cool down, it trips the NO CO and shuts the refer down. You have ONE TRY to reset. You turn the refer OFF for a few seconds and turn back on. IF YOU HAVE NOT FOUND AND CORRECTED THE NO CO PROBLEM, IT TRIPS THE 2ND "NO CO". That locks out the controls and you have to do a hard reset, then find and fix the problem that caused a NO CO. Now, if the CU is indeed bad, that also will cause a NO CO, but odds are it is another problem causing it. Doug

[Grey_Mountain]

"Belly up" means no workee. On the fritz. Kaput. Cooling unit has stopped cooling.

This is a NORCOLD 1200L RIMD in a 2006 Fleetwood Discovery.
Error code as mentioned above is

no co

in small letters.
Owners manual says this means "cooling unit has stopped cooling."

There is a reset procedure, which I tried, to no avail. Manual says if one reset does not work, a second reset is not possible.

GM

[Grey_Mountain]

dougrainer wrote:
There is NO code for a bad cooling unit on ANY RV refer. Doug

Error code

no co (small letters)

Owners manual says this means "cooling unit has stopped cooling."

GM

[Gjac]

I would wire the 120v directly to the heating element bypassing the board and other circuitry and run the refer for 24 hrs and see it it cools. If it does your cooling unit is good and your problem is elsewhere an less costly. I would do this test before I took it to a dealer. If you don't do the work yourself the install of a residential refer will be costly also. Estimate the cost for new additional batteries, mounting them and wiring and install costs (do you have room for at least 2 more batteries), a 1-2k sine wave inverter if you don't have one already, removal of the old unit, installing the new one and modifications to make it fit. Then compare the costs for a new residential to a new cooling unit, if close depending on how much dry camping you would like to do then make a decision. Also if you describe in more detail what you mean by your fridge went "belly up" maybe you problem can be more easily diagnosed by someone on this forum.

[drsteve]

Grey Mountain wrote:

JimK-NY wrote:
What sort of refrigerator do you have with a replacement cost of $3000-$4000? Most of the reasonable sized RV refrigerators are in the range of $1500 or less. If you do nothing but sit in RV parks, I guess a domestic refrigerator would be OK. You might want to think about resale value. I certainly would never consider an RV that absolutely required electrical hook ups at all times.

***

1210LRIM - 1210LR WITH ICE MAKER. FOUR DOOR, SIDE/SIDE
72-4885
List price $4,550.79
Sale price $3,189.99

GM

That is a big azz RV fridge...

[Grey_Mountain]

JimK-NY wrote:
What sort of refrigerator do you have with a replacement cost of $3000-$4000? Most of the reasonable sized RV refrigerators are in the range of $1500 or less. If you do nothing but sit in RV parks, I guess a domestic refrigerator would be OK. You might want to think about resale value. I certainly would never consider an RV that absolutely required electrical hook ups at all times.

***

1210LRIM - 1210LR WITH ICE MAKER. FOUR DOOR, SIDE/SIDE
72-4885
List price $4,550.79
Sale price $3,189.99

GM

[Roadpilot]

Residential refrigerators don't consume a lot of energy. They are very efficient. The inverter must be sized for the startup current of the refrigerator, but shortly after the startup inrush the current level drops to a moderate level. Once the refrigerator is down to temperature it'll stay there for hours - they are much better insulated then gas absorption types. So if you integrate or average the energy usage over a day it's quite low.

So the bottom line is that you'll need a 1 to 2 thousand watt inverter to get the refrigerator started and good batteries and properly sized wires to handle that short burst of energy, but averaged over the day the total energy usage will be quite low.

You can minimize this even further by not opening the door unnecessarily or maybe disabling the defroster.

It's kind of tlike a microwave - short bursts of large amounts of energy but not much averaged over the day..

[YC_1]

Our first trip with our new residential. Love it. Went from 12 cu ft to 21 and reduced a lot of weight. Haven't run it on the inverter except for a test. After a couple of hours we usually stop for a break as start the generator. In hot weather as it is now the generator is running all the time. Had the ice maker lever off while moving. Ten minutes after dropping the arm ice is filling again.

Yes, a large Dometic with ice maker can cost upwards of 4K. This residential was on sale and we got it for about $800. Yes the install was time consuming but I too my time and it is rock solid.

[larry_cad]

Does your Discovery have an inverter? I run my residential off of my inverter while traveling and even when dry camping. Obviously I have to recharge the batteries from time to time, but my frig is very comfortable running off of the inverter.

After the second Norcold cooling unit failure that is the way I went.