Fridge question

[Civil_War_Buff]

I have a question regarding the ac operation on the fridge.  I have not used mine on ac yet, mainly because propane works best for me, but I was wondering something.  When the Bathroom wall is folded down and the electrical cut out is on (no voltage), will the 110V on the fridge still operate?  Is the cut-out only for the 12V? If the 110V still works, how long does it take to cool down the fridge when the trailer is folded down?  I need to make sure that the fridge works on 110V before I take it in for a little warranty work, so knowing what to expect first would be very helpful.  Finally, if I run the fridge on 110V, folded down, do I need to run the fin fan at the same time?  I would prefer not to hook the batteries back up unless I have to.

Thanks,

Larry (CWB)

[hal]

Larry, The "kill switch" is supposed to deactivate any 12 volt apparatus in the rear half of your trailer.  Unless someone has added additional 12 volt features, this should include everything in the rear ceiling, including the bathroom ceiling light plus the exhaust fan near the floor (if you have one)  Your 110 volt outlet located near the stove is still operational if your feeder cord is hooked up to a 110 volt supply.  Your refrigerator, water pump, 12 volt ceiling lights, smoke detector, refer fan,  plus any other 12 volt apparatus in the front half will still be  operational when the bathroom wall is folded down.  Any 110 volt outlets will remain hot if the supply cord is plugged into any 110 supply (same as the rear 110 outlets).  Any time your refer is running and the tops are lowered, your refer fan should be running also.  This includes the time you are traveling down the high way.  There is enough heat generated by the refer to burn itself out if the fan is not on.  Beware, this little fan can cause a drain on your tow vehicle's battery if the tow vehicle batter is not being recharged.  We have found that once our refer is cold, we can drive an entire day (six hours)  without the refer being turned on.  Your 110 voltage going to the refer will be on as long as you are plugged into a 110 volt supply from outside the trailer.  We begin charging our refer the day before we are going to stock it with perishables.  It would seem in our case that cooling the refer with 12 volts is not very effective.  Electricity and propane work the best.

Hal

[Bill]

The real question may be - if you are plugged in to the outside 110v source, why is the bathroom is folded down?  In other words, I don't fold down the bathroom until I'm getting ready to travel. At that point I also disconnect the 110 volt cord, and switch the refer to either 12 volt or propane.

Perhaps you are thinking about pre-chilling the refer in your driveway, using 110 volts, before you leave on a trip? This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do - but why not leave the bathroom erected while you do it? When you are ready to leave, the need to fold down the bathroom also reminds you to switch the refrig to 12v or propane. Forgetting to do it is so messy ...

Bill

[BOB_STRONG]

I hope you DO NOT run your refrig on propane when you are traveling down the road. It can be quite dangerous if you pull into a gas station and fill up your tow vehicle. The pilot or flame could cause an explosion with the gas fumes at the gas station. That's why the signs say to shut off your vehicle when refilling. I am not an expert on propane, but this is what I have read in various magazines regarding propane in RVs. Any comments to the statement would be welcome. Not too long ago near our town on ROUTE 17, a motorhome exploded from a leak in their refrig. They were using the propane instead of the battery. They got out alive, but you should have seen pictures of the RV in the newspaper!!! NOT a pretty PICTURE!!! ??? ???

Bob Strong

[tipper]

We typically will keep the fridge on AC until just before we leave.  Having the bathroom already broken down makes the final closure and get away quicker.

The fridge seems to cool quicker on AC plus I have a muffin fan on the fridge coils that runs from the AC line.

[Civil_War_Buff]

Wow, thanks for the input all, I will try to address some of the questions raised, etc.  First of all, I keep my TM in the driveway, and closed down it is the full length of my driveway, so in order to open the unit, I need to pull the trailer across the sidewalk, and the city isn't too keen on doing that for long.  I used to pre-cool the fridge on my Coleman, but the access panel was on the outside and in this case, more convenient.  I use the propane only after getting to the CG, but without pre-cooling, it takes a while for the fridge to get down to a same temp for food storage.  
I am going to put my volt meter into the fridge outlet to verify that I have 110V, then I will see if it will cool down.

One more question I have is, I noticed that when I am running the fridge on propane the meter goes into the green, but is it supposed to go into the green while on 110 or 12V?

When the dealer gave me the walk thru last week, he explained the green meter is for propane only.  When in the green, there is a flame lit when you are in the lighting process.  Once you shut off the gas, the needle will slowly go back out of green as thermal coupler cools off from lack of flame.  The green meter is internal proof that flame is lit without having to manually see the flame.

[Chris_Bauer]

I'm neither here nor there on the issue of traveling while using propane.  However, I belong to a Yahoo RV club, Rver's Under 55, and there is a lot of talk about the use of propane while traveling.  Apparently, you can drive while using propane, but need to turn it off before entering a gas station.  Sounds to complicated to me.  We travel with our fridge on electric and it works just fine.  Why take the risk.  You may want to become a member as there is valuable info about RVing and such.

Just my two pesos.

chris

[arknoah]

I also don't fold down the bathroom until ready to travel, and so couldn't really respond to Larry's original question.  We've found that having the unit open to stock it and turn on the fridge for an hour or so is generally good enough to precool it.  Then, we keep it on 12v while traveling.  If we stop for any period of time, I disconnect the trailer from the car battery to avoid excessive drain on the tow vehicle.  And because the fridge is closed the entire time it retains the cold.

[arknoah]

Oh, and I have always used the fridge (and hot water heater) on electric when hooked up at a campground.  I figure, I'm paying for this power from the campground, I might as well use that versus my own personal propane!

[Bill]

I hope you DO NOT run your refrig on propane when you are traveling down the road... Bob Strong

Bob -

You are exactly right. No, I never travel with the propane on. My fingers just got ahead of my mind as I was typing, and combined two individually-reasonable thoughts into one unreasonable statement.  Thanks for picking up on it.

Bill

Maybe I don't understand the problem but with our 2619 I have to stow the 110 cord into its place at the rear of the lower unit before folding it down. Once folded I can't stow the cord anymore.
Thus, for us, this makes it impossible to have the refer run on 110 VAC while the back half is folded down.
Regarding efficiency my understanding is that the refer runs best on propane, then 110 V, then 12 VDC. The latter will only hold the existing temperature, not cool it lower.
Dick_B

[Civil_War_Buff]

Dick_B,

You can pull the electrical cord out before closing it down and can leave it out without any problem. I have turned the fridge on to 110V at the CG, but it doesn't cool fast enough so I then switch to propane. I have run it on propane while travelling though (I know there are many who don't like this approach), but I usually like to pre-cool on 110, then switch to 12V for travelling only. I would never refuel the TV with the LPG running, and I believe there are many States that don't allow towing with the gas on, and some that won't allow you to go through tunnels with LPG on board period.

I will try the fridge on 110V this weekend and see if it cools down OK.

CWB

[Denny_A]

Somewhere on this board is posted a method for cooling down the "reefer" fairly quickly prior to travel. Don't know where to find it, but here's the jist, and it works for me.

Use 110 ac or propane AND load the reefer with a few packets of "blue ice". I use two large ones in plastic containers and 4 smaller ones in plastic bags. The temp in the main unit drops fairly quickly. Within a few short hours start loading with the already-cold food items until it becomes necessary to remove blue ice to make space. Works very well!

OTOH - I spent 3 days in MS and 3 days in FL last week with RH of 80 to 100% and OAT of around 80 deg F. Had a difficult time holding temperature. Temps climbed to 48-50 deg F and stayed there. Stopped in Lake city when returning home and added the reefer temp prob to my list. However, by the time we reached Lake City the temps were back to 38-40 deg. F. Assumption - high humidity means heat transfer problems for the reefer heat exchanger.


Denny_A

Denny,
You got it! The higher the RH and tempature the more problems the fridges have cooling. A lot of people don't realize these are absorbtion fridges, they cool by heat transfer to the surrounding air, alot like a human sweating. The best way to deal with this situation is to add a small cooling fan to move air across the "coils" on the rear of the fridge. There are a multitude of ways to do this. I use a small 12 volt fan that I aquired from somewhere, that is mounted to a piece of angle bracket. I have seen people use the small electronic "biscuit" fans. I have even seen one on an older MH where someone was using an old electric radiator fan. Camping World sells fans for this purpose too. http://www.campingworld.com/browse/skus/index.cfm?deptID=4&subOf=41,25&skunum=1459

Aaron

I just bought one of the battery operated fans from Camping World, and it did help the fridge cool down much faster.

[Paul_Heuvelhorst]

Denny,
...The best way to deal with this situation is to add a small cooling fan to move air across the "coils" on the rear of the fridge.
Our 1998 2619 came from the factory with a fan installed to circulate air across the back of the fridge, with a manual switch on the front panel to turn in on & off.  We used that fan primarily while traveling, fridge on 12VDC, but used it also when the RH was high, no matter what power source we used for the fridge.  We never experienced difficulty keeping the temperature low enough to keep our food at the proper temperature.

[oilspot]

Most TMs have a small 12V fan in the floor behind the fridge, which pulls the hot air from the top of the compartment out through the floor via a small length of dryer vent hose.  It is important to use this fan while the TM is closed.  You can also use it when the TM is open and tem/RH is high.

To improve ventilation behind the fridge, I installed a second thermostaticlly operated fan that only runs when the temp gets to high at the coils.  It helps improve the efficiency of the fridge.

I also purchased a battery operated fan for inside the fridge to help equalize the temps from one shelf to the next...  

Both fans help improve the operation of the fridge