Fridge Issues

[Burnking]

My son is using my old 2008 Trailmanor. It has a small 3-way fridge. Lately he has been have problems with it warming up.

This last weekend, he started it on 110V, on Thursday (left on Sat). Later placed some items in it on Fri. and it was at 35 degrees. Traveled to campground (2 hours) with it on propane. Full hookups, back to 110V. By evening it was creeping toward 50 degrees. Weather was low 90's. It does have a fan inside and a fan on the exhaust as it goes out the side.
By morning it was back down too ice on the fins.

He installed a new burner earlier to try and help. When I was still using it, it didn't seem to have this problem.

Any ideas? Environmental temp too warm? Outlived its life?

Thanks

[Scrapper]

Have you tried to look on the web for the manuals? You need the make and model number for the fridge. There may also be a service manual available.

[TheGerman]

Originally Posted by Burnking

...By morning it was back down too ice on the fins

That means the fridge is basically working. In terms of "pecking order", gas tends to achieve the best cooling, followed by AC and then DC. That's purely based on how much heat each source can generate. High outside temps and e.g. the sun shining on the fridge side squeeze the operating range higher.

Changing the burner is obviously not changing anything when running on AC or DC.

[pgandw]

Is the exhaust fan actually working? My experience has been that inconsistent cooling is caused by insufficient air flow across the cooling coils and/or hot air getting trapped in the compartment with the cooling coils.

Confirming my hypothesis was the fact that the fridge always worked well when I was towing at highway speeds, but would warm up quickly when stopped for lunch or gas or similar.

Having just taken delivery of a new A-frame, I started reading through the Dometic installation instructions. The instructions are pretty adamant at having tight clearances and/or baffles to ensure the cooling air goes through the coils instead of around them. Fans are often needed to make this airflow happen when the upper vent is on the camper side instead of on the roof.

On my previous A-frame, I baffled and insulated the rear compartment with Reflectix to prevent hot air collecting and heating up the cabinetry. Even that wasn't good enough if there was no wind. I then installed a computer case fan on the exhaust vent, and voila - the fridge cooled properly under all conditions. When outside temps were cool, I actually had to turn the fan off to prevent freezing inside the fridge.

Fred W
2019 Flagstaff T21TBHW
2008 Hyundai Entourage minivan
camping Colorado and adjacent states one weekend at a time