Ref freezes everything

[samsontdog]

My wife stuffed every inch of our ref and the ref never had any space to let air circulate. Now the entire ref freezes down to 0. I turn the ref off at night but the ref is still at 30 or so the next morning. So do I need a new thermostat or how do I correct the problem?. I took a lot of food out of the ref so it can circulate air

[kellem]

Huntindog wrote:
She probably knocked the thermister off of the cooling fins. Clip it back on it will be good to go.

The likely culprit. But an expendable wife may also be worthy of exploration.

[JGCorm]

If everything was frozen you may have to turn it of to defrost everywhere.

[bucky]

Must be my true loves twin. We bring back more food than we eat. Pantry packed as well. She doesn't take suggestions well.

[Huntindog]

She probably knocked the thermister off of the cooling fins. Clip it back on it will be good to go.

[ajriding]

Depends what fridge you have.
The older fridges just have a temp range dial, not a temp setting, they are just dumb fridges. Setting it low means a low flame, or low electric heat, setting it high means a higher flame and thus more cooling.
If it is cold outside then the fridge will freeze because even at low setting the temp is dropping too much. Now way around this but to turn it off at intervals. I had this problem at night with similar fridge.
If it is a newer fridge that knows the temp then you have sensor problem as mentioned above. New parts are in order since you already tried to take food out and give interior the correct air space.

[Sandia_Man]

I had to replace a few thermistors on our Dometic fridges over the years for that same issue, on a couple of occasions we installed adjustable thermistors which worked out well. Haven't had that issue on our Norcold fridge, over 90% of our RVing over 3 decades has been with a Dometic fridge onboard.

[goducks10]

It's possible that food items are interfering with the thermistor. I've always had the opposite happen when cramming a fridge full of food items.