Warning on Norcold and Dometic refrigerators

[funpilot]

Got this in an email this morning from the editor of RVReviews:

WARNING: Norcold and Dometic Refrigerator Units

Ordinarily our weekly articles focus on the fun aspect of RVs and camping but today we have to pause to bring up a very serious ongoing issue with Norcold refrigeration units currently in use in many RVs. The problem has been going on for years and was initially introduced as a "limited recall". That recall has continued to expand and now covers many of their previously manufactured units.

How serious is this issue? Extremely. Apparently to date there have been over 2,000 RV fires due to this problem, with many RVs totally destroyed, and some deaths. The recall letter states "The nature of the defect is a fatigue failure in the section of the cooling unit which contains the refrigerant. This fatigue failure could allow the liquid solution to slowly leak from the cooling unit. If a leak occurs and the refrigerator continues to be operated after solution circulation has ceased the heat source could generate very high temperatures. At such high temperatures the steel material of the cooling unit could soften and rupture. If refrigerant gas is still in place when the rupture occurs hydrogen gas may be expelled and could be ignited by the high temperature, possibly causing a fire." Models included in the recall (that we are familiar with) are 4-door model numbers 1200 and 1201. However, many other models, including single door models, are now also being included.

If you have a Dometic refrigerator, you need to be aware that they have had similar recalls for similar reasons. Recall information can be found at your manufacturer's website, or just Google "norcold recall" or "dometic recall."

The Norcold factory link follows here: http://www.norcoldrecall.com/. The factory link includes detailed information on determining if your refrigerator is at risk and how to proceed with recall repair. We are purposely not including affected years because we have watched the window of defective dates expand considerably over time.

Most of the the issues we deal with here at RVReviews.net are minor (non life-threatening) but this is a major problem and should be addressed as soon as possible. We apologize for the serious tone today but many of our readers are active RVers and need to be made aware of the urgency of this situation.

As always we'd like to hear from anyone affected by this recall and their satisfaction with the fix. Next week we'll be back to your regularly scheduled articles.

Happy Travels,

John Toffler

Editor

RVReviews.net