You're not going to believe this!!

[Crawfordville]

I posted a topic recently about our Atwood Helium refrigerator not switching over to gas. Many people had very good suggestions. Today we decided to try to trouble shoot the issue. As it turns out the problem was a "dirt dobber". My husband had to use a very small flexible wire brush and put it up the "chimney" of the unit. There were two locations where they caused problems. It took many attempts of cleaning it out to get the remnants cleared out.

Lesson learned here today. We are going to be putting a screen up behind the refrigerator panel, the hot water heater panel and the furnace exhaust.

[nanannjen]

So glad that I read this. We happened to be going out to our trailer yesterday - we haven't used it for a while. Since I had read this thread, I wandered behind the trailer, only to see a wasp going into the fridge vent. We sprayed, and they started boiling out. We'll be installing screens tomorrow!

We get both mud daubers and the paper type nests. We had a paper type on our bumper last year - we drove a couple of hundred miles, got to our destination - not only was the nest still there, but there were still wasps in it! They're amazing (in a scary way!

[JAYHAWKERS]

We bought our first travel trailer (new) in the month of April. We took it home and did some modifications and cleaning,then took it to a storage facility and parked it. The next week we picked up the trailer for our first trip and noticed a lot of bird droppings all over the roof and sides. Saw sticks, grass, twigs sticking out from the A/C shroud. Took the cover (Dometic) off and the entire squirrel cage blower was full of nesting materials. Took the wife and I a good 30 minutes to remove the nests. To solve the problem we bought the refrigerator stainless steel screens and ty-wraped the screens in place, bending the long ones to match the contours of the unit. They were expensive compared to an at home fix, but solved our problem quickly and we were on our way camping. P.S. we did get around to installing flying insect screens on all the openings.....setting under our TT awning one day this year saw a wasp fly into the ground hole of the outside 120 volt outlet we were using. After about ten seconds he backed out and went to making a paper nest on the awning. They sure are a TT's best source of housing. Happy camping all.

[Crawfordville]

We had 'No see um" screen left over from our porch. We glued three strips of that onto the three slots for the fridge. We already had the furnace and HW covers but never got around to installing them. So, this headache with the dirt daubers has motivated us!! They're installed now.

[dadmomh]

You take a first look at these screens and think "and they want HOW much for this?" Granted, it doesn't look like much, but they are worth their weight in gold. The set of 3 for the frig is the simplest and for whatever reason the most expensive, but IMHO an absolute necessity. We put the WH and furnace ones on first with our '07 ROO, thinking the frig was not crucial. Wrong. Just bite the bullet, get all of them and be done with a frustrating experience. When we sold our '07 ROO in '13, they looked like brand new and had never had any problems with them. Another benefit to the one for the furnace is that if you have little ones with you, they can touch the outlet if the screen is not on and get a nasty burn. A good safety feature.

[RoyB]

Same here on just having a screen over the Heater vent. Probably should do the same for the fridge and hot water vents too...

Roy Ken

[skripo]

Last week Attwood acknowledged that their supplier had changed a spec on a part, causing some 2014 model fridges to not switch to gas automatically or reliably.

Call them to see if your fridge is affected.

[lbrjet]

thomasmnile wrote:

Crawfordville wrote:
We are going to be putting a screen up behind the refrigerator panel, the hot water heater panel and the furnace exhaust.

Those screens were the first 'accessories' we bought when we got our new TT. Those mud daubers will homestead anywhere, even on the tires under the covers!

X2.

[gaymeadowsman]

I never had a mud dauber problem, but the last time we washed our trailer, wasp came fling out of the fridge vent. I sprayed Wasp and Hornet spray through the vent, when I pulled the vent off there was a wasp nest the size of a tennis ball! And we used the trailer regularly.

[wmoses]

thomasmnile wrote:

Crawfordville wrote:
We are going to be putting a screen up behind the refrigerator panel, the hot water heater panel and the furnace exhaust.

Those screens were the first 'accessories' we bought when we got our new TT. Those mud daubers will homestead anywhere, even on the tires under the covers!

Same here. Picked ours up from the dealer when we picked up the trauiler, and installed them on the shakedown camping trip on the way back home.

Good to hear the OP resolved their issue.

[dodge_guy]

Have had the dauber screens over my furnace vents. I never have put anything over the fridge or water heater. Probably not a bad idea!

[2oldman]

Mud daubers can be a problem.

[thomasmnile]

Crawfordville wrote:
We are going to be putting a screen up behind the refrigerator panel, the hot water heater panel and the furnace exhaust.

Those screens were the first 'accessories' we bought when we got our new TT. Those mud daubers will homestead anywhere, even on the tires under the covers!

[kennethwooster]

No more then they cost, we should always have these on. I lost one somewhere, and ask a tech how important they were. She said since you live in Texas, make sure you have them on.

[TucsonJim]

We have an Atwood refrigerator in our new FW. From day one, it wouldn't work on electric. Then it stopped working on gas. They replaced the circuit card, the electric heating element and the igniter to get it to work. It seems they would have done some quality checks before delivering this to the FW manufacturer. On the manufacturer's forum, many others reported the same problems. Fortunately, the warranty covered the repairs and it's been working fine ever since.

I've heard of insect nests causing problems before. Consider yourself lucky that it wasn't a major defect causing the problems. Good job by your DW to find it.