The 3-way refrigerator in our 2003 3124KS suddenly started to cool very weakly when running on propane, and we have several things to chase down (flame looks good, burner looks good, cleaning flue, checking propane pressure, a few other things).
Upon opening the upper fridge vent from the outside of the trailer, I found a completely loose piece of lightweight paneling lying askew over the top pipe (condenser?), with some kind of paper loosely attached to the panel surface. The edges of the panel had torn heat tape along them.
See pictures of panel and view into the top vent area.
I know from the previous owner that this fridge is at least the second one installed in this trailer, the first one caught fire in some way. I suspect that the original panel may have been damaged, and this panel was installed when a new fridge was installed.
From searching this site, it sounds like there originally may have been a heavier weight masonite panel with insulation above it somewhere in this space.
I can make a replacement panel, but if someone has easy access to their upper fridge vent, I’m trying to figure out from someone who has a working setup:
- What/where should the panel rest on or attach to on the refrigerator side? Same question for where it attaches on the side of the trailer-wall? It appears that maybe a screw was screwed in upwards through the panel into a wooden strip that runs along the top surface of the upper vent, just inside the vent frame plastic.
- Should there be high temperature tape along the edges of the panel to form a seal to the wooden walls of the cabinet that holds the refrigerator?
- Any guesstimate of distance of clearance between the panel and the top condenser pipe and/or the top of the dryer vent piece? The Dometic manual has minimum specs, but would be nice to know what Trailmanors commonly have.
FWIW, we have no stereo in the adjacent space above the refrigerator itself, and the ‘new’ fridge is one that I think is commonly used in Trailmanors (Dometic 2353).
Lesson learned: I am chagrined that I let this happen! I don’t know much about repair, but I should have been opening and looking at all the accessible parts of the trailer on a regular basis. A simple visual inspection would have shown me that this was likely to become a problem.
Photo note: there is a 2-liter pop bottle in the panel picture, it's just to give a sense of scale.