On my recent NC trips, I noticed the fridge had a hard time keeping any kind of reasonable temperature. Once I arrived at my destination and switched to AC power, it would do fine. I figured this had something to do with driving in 90+° temperatures and having the fridge generally in the sun. Nope, the gas portion of the fridge was about half-way dead.
After extensive testing, pulling apart all kinds of pieces and lots of cleaning, nothing fixed it. The flame was simply about half of what it should have been, and refused to do any better. I made the decision to pull the fridge out of service because I need to have something that will work while I’m not plugged in for days or weeks at a time.
After disconnecting all of the wires and tubes and so forth that hold the fridge in place, I found that there was no way to remove the fridge in one piece from the camper. It couldn’t fit through any door, window, vent, escape hatch, or anything else. I think the camper was built around the fridge. The only way to get it out was to literally saw it in half.
It would have been nice to be able to keep the fridge in one piece, perhaps work on it another time, but I’m OK with having it go. Replacing something that uses propane with something that only uses electricity is a good choice in my mind, one less thing to potentially blow up or catch fire while traveling.
I have long-term plans of having two fridge units in the trailer, one being used as a fridge and the other being used as a freezer. The unit I purchased to put in the camper will work as a fridge for now and eventually will be used as a freezer in the trailer. Sure, this was an unexpected expense (having fridges die always is), but at least I’ll be able to move the fridge to the next RV when that time comes.
I just installed the fridge a couple hours ago, but so far I’m happy with it. The handles, latch, and hinges are all substantial metal pieces. The control panel on the side shows the current internal temperature and allows me the ability to set a temperature in 1°F increments as I see fit. That’s a huge improvement over a warm/cold type slider the old fridge had. And if the specs are correct, I should be able to run it pretty easily on my current solar setup, no propane or generators or anything like that is needed.
I still need to properly seal off the old fridge access panel. I have a feeling I’ll get ambitious at some point and install a light in the cabinet above the new fridge and I may even wire it to come on when I open the fridge.
There are a few other maintenance items needed, but I should be on schedule to depart for Oregon shortly after the 4th.