Refrigerator Replacement
My 10 year old Dometic RM 2852 died. I'll replace it with a similar size unit. Do I go with another Dometic or a Norcold? We are fulltimers so it will be working all the time. Thanks. Jeff :)
Forum Discussion
I have had both Norcold and Dometic. Both served me well. In my many years of RV experience and the many Rvers I have met it seems the Norcolds have problems that require full replacements more so than Dometic. Things like the insulation inside the refrigerator deteriorating and more electronic problems than Dometic. Dometics have cooling unit problems, which can be repaired by replacing the cooling unit only. This can be done inside the RV so a window doesn’t have to be removed to replace the whole refrigerator.
Residential Refrigerators can be a bad option for the following reasons;
You are limited to driving less hours and only camping with electrical hookups unless you add more batteries and an inverter, which with the refrigerator can cost you more than the RV unit.
A window or windshield usually has to be removed to remove the RV unit and add the residential one.
Unless you get one that is designed for RV use, they are not designed for bouncing down the road.
They usually vent hot air out the front, which can be a real bad idea if you use your RV in hot locations and have trouble keeping it cool in the first place.
The patch job to install it usually doesn’t look as neat as the original.
It is not a direct replacement, mods have to be made as well as beefing up the bottom of the cabinet to carry the weight.
They generally only last about 10 years in fulltime use, which isn’t much better than an RV unit.
They can be noisy especially in a small space like an RV.
I realize that a lot of people have done the swap and have not had most of these problems and their refrigerator is running well and has lasted a long time but so have the ones that have elected to stick with the RV units.
Residential Refrigerators can be a bad option for the following reasons;
You are limited to driving less hours and only camping with electrical hookups unless you add more batteries and an inverter, which with the refrigerator can cost you more than the RV unit.
A window or windshield usually has to be removed to remove the RV unit and add the residential one.
Unless you get one that is designed for RV use, they are not designed for bouncing down the road.
They usually vent hot air out the front, which can be a real bad idea if you use your RV in hot locations and have trouble keeping it cool in the first place.
The patch job to install it usually doesn’t look as neat as the original.
It is not a direct replacement, mods have to be made as well as beefing up the bottom of the cabinet to carry the weight.
They generally only last about 10 years in fulltime use, which isn’t much better than an RV unit.
They can be noisy especially in a small space like an RV.
I realize that a lot of people have done the swap and have not had most of these problems and their refrigerator is running well and has lasted a long time but so have the ones that have elected to stick with the RV units.
