When you have a dometic refrigerator in your RV, you’ll be able to enjoy fresh, dometic parts cold food and drinks for hours. These coolers come in a variety of styles and sizes, so you can find one that’s perfect for your needs. If you’re looking for a fridge that’s designed to fit in small spaces, look for a compact model.
Dometic Refrigerators Explained: How They Work
The best way to understand how an RV fridge works is by reading the instruction manual. This will help you learn how to troubleshoot your unit if it becomes dysfunctional. It will also give you a better understanding of how to care for it, so that you can avoid expensive repairs down the road.
Most Dometic and Norcold models run on a gas absorption process, meaning that they use propane (LP) to absorb heat and create cooling in the fridge. The gas is heated by a propane fire or electrical heating element and then rises and expands. The refrigerant then moves to the evaporator, where it is cooled and evaporated.
Some RV absorption fridges even operate on battery power or off grid power if your campground does not have a reliable electric connection. These types of refrigerators aren’t as dependable as propane-operated fridges, but they can keep your food and drink at safe temperatures for long periods of time without shore power.
If you have a dometic refrigerator, you’ll want to keep it clean and free of debris. Dirty air can clog the compressor, which could cause it to overheat and fail to cool.
You may also need to defrost your fridge if it starts to accumulate ice. This is a very common problem for these types of units, and it’s something that you can easily fix yourself.
Typically, the best way to defrost a dometic refrigerator is to remove your contents from the fridge and place them in a cooler or other cooling source. This should be a simple task, and it shouldn’t take too long to get rid of the ice.
Another great way to make sure that your Dometic refrigerator is working properly is to check the control boards. These are often faulty and can lead to problems with your fridge’s operation. A professional will be able to fix these, but you can do it yourself as well.
The control boards in these fridges are generally easy to check, but you should always have a multimeter handy if you need to do a more thorough job. Once you’ve ruled out other problems, you can then decide whether to replace your control board or just clean it up and restore functionality.
A Dometic refrigerator can last 10 to 18 years if you take good care of it. However, it’s important to note that these refrigerators are a bit more fragile than residential fridges, so you’ll want to be careful when transporting them.
Most Dometic refrigerators have a reset button that can be used to reset the controls. To access the switch, you’ll need to disconnect your RV from all power sources and hold the button for about 10 seconds. Once the button is released, you can then restore power to your RV and finish resetting the controls.