My fridge is pants

[Colin_374358138]

Hi All,

Currently rowing with dealer....

My Dometic fridge in Bailey Ranger is good on gas but very poor on mains Elec.

Ordinarily I would assume that the mains elec could never perform like gas in such applications and be happy.

However I used to have a Bailey Pageant, which electrically is more or less identical to the ranger and its fridge was good on Elec.

Any ideas ? I understand power supplies and motors but fridges aren't my bag.

Only noticable sympotom is that on the Ranger when fridge is on elec mains the worktop gets hot.

Col

 

[Hamer_5041128]

Colin,

You say your worktop is getting hot when on mains.

Could it be that the heat from the fridge is not able to escape through the fridge vents.I am not suggesting this applies to you, but i know of one caravanner who had a similar problem on mains and he had failed to remove the winter covers on the vents.

What did your dealer do to check the fridge?.Did he remove the outside vents to check the rear of the fridge?

Hamer

 

[Hamer_5041128]

Colin,

Forgot to say, if your fridge is still under warranty give Dometic a ring, they may come out and check your fridge over. They did with the fridge in our last Bailey.

Hamer

 

[Colin_374358138]

thanks yes winter covers aren't on - I think I've lost them actually.

Specifially I tested in France last summer with an ambient of 25 deg C outside It didn't get better than 10Deg C.

I will call Dometic but I think that the pain truth is that its a bit weak on the leccy.

 

[gary]

First it should be the same on both heat sources so for whatever reason electric is not working correctly.

Why I don't know but I've come across this several times, some Dometic elements 'go low'! the resistance across the element drops to around 370ohms instead of the 470ohms it should be. Very strange but this will cause overheating, the fridge won't work correctly and perhaps the reason your tops getting hot?

One other possible is a replacement element has not been correctly fitted in it's holder, this will prevent effective heat transfer to the cooler unit.

And one more possible would be a fault thermostat.

 

[Colin_374358138]

Thanks, I think I am going to have to go to Dometic for sure.

All dealer does is plug it in for 24 hours and says it gets kind of cold - no problems.... When ambient temp is 10degC in his workshop thats hardly a surprise.

Cheers,

Colin

 

[gary]

First it should be the same on both heat sources so for whatever reason electric is not working correctly.

Why I don't know but I've come across this several times, some Dometic elements 'go low'! the resistance across the element drops to around 370ohms instead of the 470ohms it should be. Very strange but this will cause overheating, the fridge won't work correctly and perhaps the reason your tops getting hot?

One other possible is a replacement element has not been correctly fitted in it's holder, this will prevent effective heat transfer to the cooler unit.

And one more possible would be a fault thermostat.

One more, low mains voltage on site?

 

[gary]

An empty fridge should be below zero in the ice box in one hour.

 

[Colin_374358138]

Thetford (it was Thetford not Dometic) are supposedly comming back to me on it.

Meanwhile VERY helpful dealer (impressed) has installed heat shield above.

Theory is that the heat could not get out properly, was buildin up, conducting down into fridge, keeping it warm etc....

Probably what I have to do is wait till a nice warm June Day comes along and test it again.