Gas Refrigerator

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mudshark

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Nov 15, 2014
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Hi All
I was reading an article on our RV refrigerators that says our evaporator refrigerators fail when ambient outside temperatures fall under 50 degrees F.
Has anyone experienced this? Should we shut them down and use ice to cool our food when the temperature gets low?
 
Hog wash.  We have used oir Dometic refer in temps down to 14 degrees with no problems.
 
Never heard that before. Sounds a little bogus to me. We've seen temps below 50 many times even in FL during the winter and the fridge always worked just fine.

OOPS, Donn beat me.
 
16 degrees with no problem. I have heard when you get into single digits you may need to close off some of the ventilation to retain more heat, but they don?t ?fail?.
 
Or put a light bulb in the refrigerator compartment to provide some supplemental heat - just like you put a light bulb in the plumbing bay to keep the pipes from freezing.
 
mudshark said:
Hi All
I was reading an article on our RV refrigerators that says our evaporator refrigerators fail when ambient outside temperatures fall under 50 degrees F.
Has anyone experienced this? Should we shut them down and use ice to cool our food when the temperature gets low?
Click to expand...

Where did you read that?
 
Been in the teens with ours. Do as Lou said, use a light bulb in the lower section of the fridge. I used a 60 watt incandescent that worked fine for us. On our second trailer, the fridge was in a slide. The fan for sending the heat out the top vent was installed to blow down from the factory. Worked great in the winter, but not so good when the weather warmed up. That's when I found out what the factory did and turned it around to the correct position.
 
We've had our coach in -4℉ weather and the fridge worked fine. I did block off most of the lower vent openings when we expected to be in below freezing temps though.
 
kdbgoat said:
Do as Lou said, use a light bulb in the lower section of the fridge.
Click to expand...

Oops, I meant to say put a light bulb in the OUTSIDE compartment so it adds supplemental heat to the outside of the fridge, not in the refrigerator itself.

The problem is when the outside temperatures get towards freezing, the refrigerator by itself can't generate enough heat to boil the refrigerant and it stops cooling.
 
Where did you read that?

It appeared in the May/June issue of Escapees magazine.
 
mudshark said:
Where did you read that?

It appeared in the May/June issue of Escapees magazine.
Click to expand...

The article actually says "This is the most common issue when temperatures fall below 50F and the unit's performance begins to diminish." (emphasis added) "Diminish" is not the same as "fail".


Note too that the article was written by the developer/vendor of the ARP RV refrigerator safety device, and he also mentions we can "use our fan controller as a solution to this problem." No sales pitch intended I'm sure...  ;)
 
Mine has worked down to 11 degrees. NOt been tested colder.

Now 95 is a problem.

What happens at 95 degrees?
 
mudshark said:
Mine has worked down to 11 degrees. NOt been tested colder.

Now 95 is a problem.

What happens at 95 degrees?
Click to expand...

Normally the hot coils behind the refrigerator set up a chimney effect.  They heat the air behind the refrigerator.  Convection makes the hot air rise through the roof vent, carrying away the heat while drawing in cooler air from the wall vent.

In hot weather there's not enough difference in temperature between the refrigerator's coils and the air, so the convection flow comes to a halt.

A small fan set to blow air upwards past the coil will restore the airflow and greatly improve hot weather performance.
 
At high temperatures the condensor part of the cooling unit ceases to function cause it cannot shed enough heat for the gas that comes out of the boiler to condense back to a liquid  (Lou explained this).  The fridge chills by channeling liquid coolant to the chill plates where it evaporates and draws heat from the fridge interior.  If the coolant is still a gas when it reaches the chill plate (evaporator), no cooling occurs.  To make matters worse, the no liquid returns to the boiler, which then gets even hotter. It's just gets worse and worse.
 
At what high and low temperatures are absorption refrigerators supposed to fail?  My properly installed Dometic 2807 has worked well from -7?F to 104?F.
 
They don't "fail" at high or low temps as much as they just become less efficient at transferring heat until they can't maintain safe temperatures in the box. If the back of the fridge remains warm enough in cold weather or cool enough in hot weather to maintain the cooling process, then the fridge keeps on working, although it may require longer cycle times to maintain the proper temperatures. If there's enough heat transfer from or to the RV interior and the rear of the fridge compared to the ambient outside temps, the overall performance can be quite good at outside temperature extremes.
 
OK, I understand now but still have a question.
How long does this slow down process take to occur? We will be going south from New England in two weeks. We will be carrying a good amount of frozen seafood. I would hate to have to eat sea scallops and swordfish steaks three times a day if the fridge warms up.
 
If your fridge is working properly you shouldn?t have any problems whatsoever. The issues mentioned occur only in extreme (high or low) temps. My fridge for example, has worked just fine in temps from 16F to 100F+.


But I don?t see a problem with scallops for breakfast  ;)
 
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