Old Dometic Fridge Not Cooling All of the Time

[Jen057]

Okay, so we have taken our used 2000 2619 out on its second trip now. A couple of days before the trip we plugged it in to the house and turned the fridge on to get it cold. Well the day before the trip we checked the fridge and it was pretty warm inside (in the 50's), we didn't have time to fix it so we packed up the coolers instead.

I did some research and it looks like this model (Dometic RM2333) has issues keeping cold in warmer weather (90's plus). We also took the fridge out of the TM and plugged it in directly into the house and kept it on our back patio under the patio cover. We put a thermometer with a probe (so we could see the temp without opening the door) and watched the temps throughout the day. In the morning the fridge would be 31 (fridge set to 6) with outside temps in the low 70's, by 10am the fridge would be 35 with outside being low 80's. At 90 degrees outside the fridge was 40 degrees and by 5pm the fridge was 51 degrees.

Well, living in the San Diego area most of Aug and Sept is in the 90-100's. I am wondering if anyone on here knows if buying a new cooling unit will fix this issue? Will the newer model Dometic 3-way have this same issue? We have another trip coming up in 2 weeks and I am just hoping the weather isn't too hot (we are going to Buellton, CA).

Thanks in advance!

[davlin]

Jen057,

Welcome to the best kept secret of absorption refrigerators. They start to lose their cooling efficiency as the ambient air temperatures approach 90 degrees. Some work better than others when it's hot, but there's no guarantee that a brand new fridge won't return the same temps you got in your test. See my refrigerator test results. http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ad.php?t=16474

I ended up replacing my Norcold with a compressor refrigerator, because like you, where I live (central Texas) we see temperatures above 90 degrees frequently!

Dave

[ka9nyn]

Fans to circulate air inside of fridge plus outside to move more air over the fins improves operation, in my experience. On my popups and my R-Pod, I built a baffle out of flashing aluminum and added 2 computer fans to cause air entering the compartment to all flow over the condensor fins. Helped quite a bit. Your mileage may vary. Try a search for 'fridge mods' on www.popupportal.com. Lots of good info there.

Cheers,

[Redtail Cruiser]

+1 on the fans helping. Good luck going to Buellton and not finding it HOT.

[Padgett]

My experience is that a GA fridge works best and most economically on propane. 120vac or 12vdc are inefficient kludges. If only going to run on electricity, a modern high efficiency compressor fridge is a better choice.

[Bill]

A bit off track, but in rummaging around the Dometic site, I discovered that the company actually offers a fan kit for cooling the condenser coils. Nice work, Davlin and ka9nyn (and others, I 'm sure). Your work is valiidated by the professionals!

POWER VENTILATOR ASSEMBLY
PART NO. 3108705.751
For Single Door Absorption Refrigerators

Bill

[Kidkraz]

Jen057,

Will you be dry camping or will you have shore power connected? If you'll be using shore power and your TM has the fridge fan, just run that to help keep the fridge cooler. From reading the about the power ventilator it works very similar to the current TM fridge fan. The difference is TM located the fan at the bottom of the fridge compartment at the end of a very flimsy dryer hose. The hose is to help pull the hot air out thru from the upper section of the compartment and port/dump it out under the TM.
When I took a good look at the way my hose is run, the top portion was tilted/flattened so I adjusted it and added a part of an old plastic container to open it as much as possible to reduce any reduction in air flow out. I taped it up and reconnected it using an angle bracket that lowered it a bit from the top part of the compartment. Never did any tests on the before or after airflow, but the last time I was camping I kept that fan running early in the morning until it was night and my fridge did stay cooler.
I also made an aux fan for inside the fridge to keep the cool air moving, which seems to help also.

[B_and_D]

Having your freezer and frig full of pre-cooled and frozen items (and keeping them in there) also helps maintain a cooler temperature. As stated before, I think ours works best on propane.

[Jen057]

Originally Posted by Kidkraz

Will you be dry camping or will you have shore power connected? If you'll be using shore power and your TM has the fridge fan, just run that to help keep the fridge cooler.

This next trip we will have shore power. My husband is installing a fan on the outside vent from another post (http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ad.php?t=16554) and a fan in the fridge to circulate the air. Both will be connected to the current fan switch, but the outside vent fan will only kick on when it gets hot enough to need it.

We will see how this works out. The forecast is calling for temps in the mid-70's to mid-80's as the highs for the week. I am hoping that it says cool and everything works out. We are bringing a cooler just in case we need to get the food out.

Since we do dry camp once in a while we really don't want to get a compressor fridge since that means we would also have to invest in solar panels.

[ThePair]

Be careful putting any auxiliary upper vent fan on a temp controlled switch, unless you can completely turn it off for towing. I've forgotten to turn mine off on two occasions; I now have an interesting subtle circle from the heat on the inside of the bathroom wall (when set up), as that part of the rear shell is directly opposite the upper vent fan when closed.

It doesn't bother me enough to see if Mr. Clean can get it out. It's a reminder to turn the fan off before closing.

I will say that, with the digital thermometer upgrade, interior and exterior fans, running the roof AC, parking in at least partial shade, I have been able to maintain > 50 degree difference between ambient (outside) and fridge temps (i.e. temp outside > 90, temp in fridge 35-36). YMMV.