Out wth the old, in with the new!

I've begun the process of exchanging our Norcold 1200 fridge for a residential model. The Norcold has performed excellently for the past 12 years, but last summer we noticed it did not get quite as cool as previously. We also have a quirky relay on the circuit board. Then, over the winter, our ARP boiler monitor twice detected an overheat condition and did a temporary shut down. That was enough warning for me - don't want to risk a fridge fire or the hassle of a failure over the coming summer.  I've said for the last 3 years that I would replace with a residential when the time came, and the time is NOW.

The fridge we have selected isn't fancy or huge, just a 14.6 cubic foot GE Energy Star model. It will fit in the hole with a bit of room to spare, but is still more than 20% larger than the 12 cu ft Norcold. Nancy is sure gonna like having a frost-free fridge! And a freezer where she can actually see the contents, instead of the dumb Norcold design with two separate freezers, each with a recessed bottom that hides things.

Since my main inverter is a MSW type, I bought a 1200 watt pure sine inverter to power the fridge while driving or otherwise off-grid. I'll wire that to my existing battery bank, which is 4 Group 31 12v Trojan AGMs. The inverter has its own auto-transfer switch, so will manage shore power and inverting. I have that partially installed, but need to do some 120v wiring for the new fridge before I can finish it up. I know several people running their residential fridges on MSW, but I wanted to make sure I had clean power and the fridge compressor running at optimum efficiency.

Wednesday I pulled the Norcold out of the wall, a task that took near half a day, though a chunk of it was simply figuring out what had to be done. I also removed the 4 doors.  For those contemplating doing this, the hole for my Norcold was exactly 35" 32 3/4" wide and 63" tall, just enough for the case size of the 1200.  It fit in their like a glove.  The fridge is sitting in the coach lounge area, on a wheeled dolly I made for that purpose.  Thursday I had only an hour or so to work on it, so just capped off the LP gas line and ice maker water line. We don't use ice much, so decided to get a portable ice maker rather than take up the freezer space.

Today I stripped the old cooling unit off the back and removed all the control wiring, ice maker, etc. That was necessary to allow the fridge to be taken out through my entry door, and also removes around 75 lbs of weight. It's much easier to handle now that the plumbing & weight is gone. I spent the rest of the afternoon making pieces to close up the exterior wall vent. I want it to be water tight and reasonably insulated, but still removable from the outside in case I need access. I'm basically making an inner wood panel that screws into place from the outside, and also sealing the holes in the plastic exterior panel that color matches the body paint. I plan to put a piece of foam insulation board between those two.

Tomorrows plan is to work on the 120v wiring between inverter and fridge.


Edit: corrected opening size

Gary RV Roamer said:

I've begun the process of exchanging our Norcold 1200 fridge for a residential model. The Norcold has performed excellently for the past 12 years, but last summer we noticed it did not get quite as cool as previously. We also have a quirky relay on the circuit board. Then, over the winter, our ARP boiler monitor twice detected an overheat condition and did a temporary shut down. That was enough warning for me - don't want to risk a fridge fire or the hassle of a failure over the coming summer.  I've said for the last 3 years that I would replace with a residential when the time came, and the time is NOW.

The fridge we have selected isn't fancy or huge, just a 14.6 cubic foot GE Energy Star model. It will fit in the hole with a bit of room to spare, but is still more than 20% larger than the 12 cu ft Norcold. Nancy is sure gonna like having a frost-free fridge! And a freezer where she can actually see the contents, instead of the dumb Norcold design with two separate freezers, each with a recessed bottom that hides things.

Since my main inverter is a MSW type, I bought a 1200 watt pure sine inverter to power the fridge while driving or otherwise off-grid. I'll wire that to my existing battery bank, which is 4 Group 31 12v Trojan AGMs. The inverter has its own auto-transfer switch, so will manage shore power and inverting. I have that partially installed, but need to do some 120v wiring for the new fridge before I can finish it up. I know several people running their residential fridges on MSW, but I wanted to make sure I had clean power and the fridge compressor running at optimum efficiency.

Wednesday I pulled the Norcold out of the wall, a task that took near half a day, though a chunk of it was simply figuring out what had to be done. I also removed the 4 doors.  For those contemplating doing this, the hole for my Norcold was exactly 35" wide and 63" tall, just enough for the case size of the 1200.  It fit in their like a glove.  The fridge is sitting in the coach lounge area, on a wheeled dolly I made for that purpose.  Thursday I had only an hour or so to work on it, so just capped off the LP gas line and ice maker water line. We don't use ice much, so decided to get a portable ice maker rather than take up the freezer space.

Today I stripped the old cooling unit off the back and removed all the control wiring, ice maker, etc. That was necessary to allow the fridge to be taken out through my entry door, and also removes around 75 lbs of weight. It's much easier to handle now that the plumbing & weight is gone. I spent the rest of the afternoon making pieces to close up the exterior wall vent. I want it to be water tight and reasonably insulated, but still removable from the outside in case I need access. I'm basically making an inner wood panel that screws into place from the outside, and also sealing the holes in the plastic exterior panel that color matches the body paint. I plan to put a piece of foam insulation board between those two.

Tomorrows plan is to work on the 120v wiring between inverter and fridge.

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Nice job Gary!



Edit: adjusted location of end-quote tag.

I had a 120 Volt outlet in the area behind the refrigerator and I used it to make connections. Be sure to use no smaller than 4/0 cable between your batteries and the inverter regardless of any calculations. The cables are available on eBay. I mounted the new inverter beneath the bed.

LOL, Wayne, I remember you had voltage drop problems!  My inverter is mounted right in the battery bay, so the 12v run is quite short. Even so, one poor connection can mess it up.

Looks great, I want to see the after pics.

Gary..thought I'd mention to plug the fridge in BEFORE you install it to make sure it isn't defective. It never occurred to us to do that. As it turned out, we had a defective fridge. Probably is very uncommon for a fridge to be defective, but if you're the one who got the defective one and have already installed it, well, doesn't matter how uncommon. It was a major PITA. Plus, Frigidaire voids the warranty if installed in a RV, so I'd suggest checking with GE as to their policy. As I'm sure you know, you're gonna love the new fridge.

I'm not gonna raise the warranty question ahead of time. Why give them an advance opportunity to go on record denying coverage? If a warranty problem arises, I'll fight them on that if it proves necessary. There is nothing in the product description that prohibits RV use, but it does say that is cannot be "built in". That, of course, is subject to interpretation. My installation will meet all the GE specs for clearances, air flow, etc.

One of the reasons I chose to install a pure sine inverter is the potential warranty issue concerning power. Also the reason  I will use an inverter bypass  except when on the highway.

Will have the fridge plugged in before the delivery/install guys leave. Am buying the fridge through Lowes and they do that anyway, as a matter of policy.

One of the reasons we are getting GE is that we are fed up with Whirlpool's attitude and poor products. We used to buy Whirlpool exclusively, but not any more! In the last several years we've had two washers and a fridge that are crappy and fail frequently, and nothing but nastiness from Whirlpool customer service slander. I bought a 5 year service plan from Lowes for our Maytag washer so I don't have to deal with Maytag/Whirlpool.  The washer craps out regularly, but Lowes sends a repair guy promptly and never gives us grief.

I bought a 5 year service plan from Lowes for our Maytag washer so I don't have to deal with Maytag/Whirlpool.  The washer craps out regularly, but Lowes sends a repair guy promptly and never gives us grief.

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A far cry from the "idle Maytag repairman" days. Our Maytag washer is around 25 years old, with never a moment of trouble, though we did have belts replaced a year or so ago, just in case. And our 30 year old Maytag dryer had a minor problem a year ago, which is why we did the washer, too. Our previous Maytags lasted almost that long before we decided to replace them -- the dryer because a belt broke (at 25 years), and the washer because it was time.

I guess we'll keep our current ones and just have them repaired (if ever needed). That's the house ones. The Maytags in our coach aren't used a lot, but seem to be doing fine for the 4 years we've had them (I think they were new with the coach in 2007).

Excellent work Gary. Keep us updated on your progress.  Once the DW experienced the residential refer,  she will never go back!

also looking forward to the after pics. what model fridge did you get?

The fridge is a 14.6 cu ft GE top freezer, model GTE15CTHRBB. Nothing fancy.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_132131-83-GTE15CTHRBB_1z108s9Z1z11x1dZ2z8vq__?productId=50260055&Ns=p_product_price|0&pl=1

We wanted the 15.5 cu ft model but it was a hair too tall and would have required some serious re-work of the cabinet to gain an just an inch of height. Decided the extra 0.9 cu ft wasn't worth the effort.

Today I finally managed to get the 120v wiring run for the inverter. It was 95% open (after removing some panels), but that last 5% was a killer. Had to zig over, zag upwards, and then zig over again, through a maze of other wires and gas lines.

I also sealed the upper (roof) vent today, and sanded and re-painted the roof vent cover while I was at it. It had been painted black and clear-coated to match the rest of the rooftop gear, and the clear coat had begun to peel.

The new fridge doesn't arrive until sometime after March 3rd, so it will be awhile before there are any "after" photos. I'll do a couple more interim shots, though.

Great project. if you need heavy duty wire look hear.
http://www.bestboatwire.com/
They will custom make your cable with the ends you need and sealed with marine grade shrink tape.
Bill

Thanks for sharing the project.

Good luck with the GE. When we remodeled our kitchen, we bought mostly GE's top-of-the-line appliances ($$$). They've all failed multiple times, and I wish I'd never heard of GE.

Gary,
What is the effect of having two inverters attached to the same battery bank?

Thanks

Good luck with the GE. When we remodeled our kitchen, we bought mostly GE's top-of-the-line appliances ($$$). They've all failed multiple times, and I wish I'd never heard of GE.

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I'm fed up with all brands of modern appliances - we had a new Samsung fridge fail in just 5 years too.  None of them seem well-made anymore, even the high dollar ones.  The Whirlpool of the same size as this GE gets bad marks from owners for things like easily broken plastic parts, e.g. door handles and shelving, so I definitely didn't want that one.

What is the effect of having two inverters attached to the same battery bank?

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Zero, other than the [potentially] increased power consumption. Only one of the inverters is a charger, so basically I've just added another load on the batteries.

Previously only the fridge ice-maker ran off the inverter, and that was rarely active when off-grid so the battery load was minimal. Now I'll be drawing power from the battery bank somewhat more often, but the engine alternator helps out while driving, so I suspect no issues there..

I'm fed up with all brands of modern appliances...

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Aye, and I'm not far behind you, so I shouldn't single out GE; Last year we threw out the 2 Fisher Peykel dish drawers because of countless failures.

I know you will have done your homework before buying the GE fridge.

Looking forward to seeing the completed project and reading positive ongoing reports.

thanks for the info!

We are picking up our new 2010 coach this weekend and my wife is ecstatic over the bottom mount residential frig she will be getting. I can certainly understand that once you've had a residential fridge in the motor home it would be hard to go back to a Norcold or Dometic. Especially if the new one has an icemaker.

Very few appliances are made in the US anymore. Whirlpool probably makes the most followed by Frigidaire, but GE is a huge outsourcers to China and Mexico. Remember seeing a $3,000 GE washer dryer front load set a few years ago and was shocked to see the Made in China badge.