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In Mid-Trip: Norcold 2-Way Problem


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Heading west on Rt 66 through Oklahoma and are having trouble with the fridge (Norcold: original, I'd guess), which doesn't seem to be cooling. I ran it for a full night on 120v before we left but am not sure it was working; outdoor temp has been near freezing or below all day. This evening, the fridge just wasn't feeling very cold so I switched over to propane; seemed to ignite easily and kept a steady light on the front. Keeping my fingers crossed that it will cool down over night, or we'll have to ditch a bunch of food...dang it. 

The Norcold has worked well in the past, but we've never had to use it in very cold weather (weeks of warmth/sun here, right up until just before our vacation week, geez!). Appreciate any suggestions, folks! (Btw, no sign or smell of ammonia in or around fridge.) Thank you

 

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Dont ditch the food. 5lbs of dry ice wrapped in about 10 wraps of newspaper will keep things cold.

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"Its the perfect thing if your refer breaks down in an emergency"

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My fridge didn't when I first got my Sunrader. Block ice in a dish pan kept it cold for 4 days if I didn't open the door a lot. Pools of carbon dioxide in a small space doesn't sound safe to me. Our refrigerators are pretty well sealed too and dry ice expands exponentially. Boom goes the door.

Linda S

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Somehow, I don't think an RV fridge door would seal up tight enough to allow pressure to build up enough to make it explode. That container that did explode (in the video), I'm sure, had a much better seal.

No need to be a woose! :)

Dry ice is sold lots of places for consumer use. I'm sure if there were any/many cases of fridges or coolers 'exploding', litigation lawyers would be all over the case and it would be banned. Or at the very least, the packaging would be covered with warnings. Have you noticed how many stickers cover a 2-step step ladder?

"Do not store your dry ice in a container that is airtight or in an ice chest with latches firmly locked."

http://www.dryicecorp.com/uncategorized/how-to-use-dry-ice-during-a-power-outage/

 

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If your driving your fridge latch is firmly closed or your food falls out. Plain old ice works fine cause my fridge is well sealed. I can dump the dish pan and buy new ice everyday easily and my food is not going to go bad. I did this for months and never had a problem. Almost didn't get my fridge fixed it worked so well

Linda S

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Ive used dry ice several time no explosion, or turning blue. Even with a latch on the refer door the seal won't hold any pressure, its designed to just stop air flow. A MH has so many air leaks that CO2 won't pool.

Dry Ice advantage...  colder refer, takes up less space (more food)

disadvantage.. harder to find, may cost more

Ice block advantage... Cheaper, easy to find.

Disadvantage ... takes up a lot of room in small refer, not as cold.

Ya pays yer money and makes yer choice,,, just don't ditch the food in the middle of the trip, there are options.

 

 

 

 

Edited by WME
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17 hours ago, linda s said:

My fridge didn't when I first got my Sunrader. Block ice in a dish pan kept it cold for 4 days if I didn't open the door a lot. Pools of carbon dioxide in a small space doesn't sound safe to me. Our refrigerators are pretty well sealed too and dry ice expands exponentially. Boom goes the door.

Linda S

Cool I can't wait to try that soon as the snows gone!

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Appreciate the dry-and-wet ice suggestions. Propane-mode seems to be working for the time being; guess I'll have to troubleshoot the electric side at some point...

Edited by Ctgriffi
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13 hours ago, linda s said:

Exactly. Even if you don't agree with me you can still have some fun.

Linda S

Oh it's not about you I just thought it would be fun it makes sense as dry ice melts it does give off copulas  amounts of CO2 so as soon as spring comes I'll hit the year sales looking for old coolers! It would not have been some thing I would have thought of but after seeing that I have got to try it. 

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10 hours ago, linda s said:

Good to hear that. I always use propane even when I have hook ups. Seems to stay colder and when I take off I don't have to remember to change out the source. I have done that before. Not good.

Linda S

Yes I found out when I went after a Klondike bar at a rest stop. Best to leave it alone it really doesn't use much propane.

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Propane mode no longer seems to be working either. We loaded up both bottom drawers of fridge with ice this morning, and still nothing feels cold in there. At campground tonight with full hookup so am going to try and run fridge on 120V again... :(

Also, at 11pm last night my wife informed me that toilet would no longer flush (black tank is plugged and won't empty); was too late and dark to troubleshoot well, so we ate the campground fee and spent night in cheap hotel. This morning I tried to snake the toilet and also attempted Drano, to no avail. Three different RV repair shops in the area (Amarillo) refused to service due to customer overload (Spring Break for many).

Heading east/home tomorrow, obviously none too soon.

 

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12 hours ago, Ctgriffi said:

Propane mode no longer seems to be working either. We loaded up both bottom drawers of fridge with ice this morning, and still nothing feels cold in there. At campground tonight with full hookup so am going to try and run fridge on 120V again... :(

Also, at 11pm last night my wife informed me that toilet would no longer flush (black tank is plugged and won't empty); was too late and dark to troubleshoot well, so we ate the campground fee and spent night in cheap hotel. This morning I tried to snake the toilet and also attempted Drano, to no avail. Three different RV repair shops in the area (Amarillo) refused to service due to customer overload (Spring Break for many).

Heading east/home tomorrow, obviously none too soon.

 

Snake the toilet?    On most MH the toilet simply sits on a black water tank and there is nothing to snake?? The contents of the toilet just go into the tank when flushed.  Have you dumped the black water tank?  This is a bit confusing.

On either gas or electric is the part circled in red getting hot?  It does take several minutes to get warm when first turned on.

toy.PNG

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The black water tank doesn't seem to drain fully and toilet will no longer empty when flushed; stuff just backs up into it. I'm thinking that the TP in use was not suitable for RV use because this hasn't been a problem in the past. One shop sold us a large bottle of stuff that should dissolve all material over a 24 hr period... we'll see at next campground tonight, when I attempt to dump the tank again.

Fridge ran all night on 120V and is very cold again, so it's becoming quite the mystery.

I forgot to mention that we were rear-ended two days ago in OK City. Low speed impact and our rear cargo rack took the brunt of it. We barely use that thing but it came in handy this time! 

 

 

 

image.jpg

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The black water tank doesn't seem to drain fully and toilet will no longer empty when flushed; stuff just backs up into it. I'm thinking that the TP in use was not suitable for RV use because this hasn't been a problem in the past. One shop sold us a large bottle of stuff that should dissolve all material over a 24 hr period... we'll see at next campground tonight, when I attempt to dump the tank again.

Hmmm, are you using the holding tank gauge to say tank no longer empty's?  IF so hold toilet flush down and look in tank with flashlight.   Holding tank gauges are horribly inaccurate.  I won't even bother repairing the ones in my Toy.  But that is just me.

Fridge ran all night on 120V and is very cold again, so it's becoming quite the mystery.

If my fridge worked on 120V I would be releaved as repair could be as simple as cleaning an orfice.   

I forgot to mention that we were rear-ended two days ago in OK City. Low speed impact and our rear cargo rack took the brunt of it. We barely use that thing but it came in handy this time! 

There are many You Tube videos on RV refrigerators, do a search to get an idea of what to look for.     Here is one for a place to start.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI9Q3939NlM

 

 

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Does your black tank look like this? If so, it may be the tank design. Look where the toilet drains into the tank, just above a platform within the tank. The solids land on this platform and get stuck. If you don't mind playing with "used" food, get a stick and push that food to the lower area of the tank. Do this at a dump station and pour lots of water down the toilet. Hope this helps.

I get tired of playing with used food and installed a 21 gallon tank, works much better. The 4-7 pictures.

Darrel

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21 hours ago, WME said:

Yeah, I saw this item, or similar, at one of the RV shops and it does look like a handy gadget—blast water into tank while still being hooked up to dump station (so you don't get covered with the stuff, if it should break free). In one of my braver, more desperate moments, I actually just shoved an old hose up the tank drain pipe and ran water up in there... which didn't do much good, unfortunately.

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18 hours ago, darrel said:

Does your black tank look like this? If so, it may be the tank design. Look where the toilet drains into the tank, just above a platform within the tank. The solids land on this platform and get stuck. If you don't mind playing with "used" food, get a stick and push that food to the lower area of the tank. Do this at a dump station and pour lots of water down the toilet. Hope this helps...

The photos do help, Darrel, thank you. I think that my tank design might be slightly different because I believe the toilet is centered up above the tank, rather than offset, but I will have to look again and confirm. In the meantime, I will probably use the "stick" approach for a bit and see where that gets me. I don't have a dump station nearby (now that we're back home), which makes this all pretty difficult. :( 

 

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