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October of this year I had finally had enough. I said goodbye to that norcold 1200, drove 547 miles to Indiana, I believe the town was Shipshewana, and had some very righteous religious fellas put in a 12 V residential. They reworked my cabinets in my carpentry, moved my central vacuum, and this was the result, I’m much happier, Keon. And for the record no the refrigerator didn’t make me happy, the wife not yelling at me anymore about not having ice cream made me happy.

I am new to RV and purchased a 2003 Class B. Is it safe to operate the fridge while driving? I've read it should be "level" or within degrees of level to avoid problems. Will driving up and down hills effect the operation?

After 22 years of great service in our RV our refrigerator will need to be replaced soon. Looking for ideas about the best refrigerator replacement. Any thoughts will be appreciated.

Looking for a used Control Board for Norcold lRIM 1200 with ice maker, circa 2005 or newer as a spare part!

Does anyone know a way to return the cooling solution back to it's natural state after it has gelled? The temperature outside dropped to 14 below zero and the refrigerator stopped cooling, so I am pretty sure the solution gelled. So what's the best procedure to fix this problem?

I'm troubleshooting why the igniter will not light my Dometic refrigerator. I have done the following troubleshooting steps. 1. cleaned the chimney and burner tube. I checked the gap on the burner tube and igniter. I also removed and cleaned the propane jet. 2. I verified 12 volts at input source from the RV. 3. I verified 12 volts on each side of the over temp switch. Now, I am trying to determine if the igniter is bad.I can manually light the unit and it does fine. There is no spark between the igniter and the burner tube.Is there a way to check the igniter for voltage? I read somewhere not to hook to that, as it would burn up the multi-meter. I see a grey wire leaving the control board that connects to the igniter. Thank you, BIll

Hi Folks - I have a Dometic refrigerator (Model RM2652) in my 2007 Class C FR Sunseeker. If I'm on shore power, it seems to cool perfectly, well below the 40-42 degrees I want. However, I boondock for weeks at a time and the fridge on propane can't seem to get cooler than 50 degrees. The freezer stays extremely cold and frozen food is fine. But normal fridge foods - milk, yogurt, meats - only last 7 days at the most. I cleaned the air flow tube, verified that the igniter works, and the unit is getting adequate propane. I've taken it off the auto electric/propane option and set it to only use propane. (It tried to run the fridge on electric whenever I turned my inverter on...sending the coach batteries into a downward spiral.) This Dometic has 'automatic, factory specified' temp control, so I don't have the option to turn it down. Is there anything else I can try... Thanks, Nan

Our refrigerator stopped working while we were away. The weather had been extremely hot (90-100) most of the time. We have power, the gas will light but no cooling. Repair guy says new cooling unit without looking at anything. Aren't there other parts that might be the problem?

I have a Norcold 1200LRIM. When it runs on AC power, I can hear the cooling fans in the back cycle on and off. But I never hear the fans run when the unit is running on LP. Anyone know if this is normal behavior? --Tim C., Park Forest, IL

We own a 2004 Safari Panther, a 42 footer. Overall a wonderful motorhome, but the previous owner put in a residential reefer, which, of course, will only run on 120V I have four 6V Golf cart batteries (226 Amp Hour each) and I have two 100W Solar panels on the roof. I am finding that this setup is not sufficient for any real dry camping/boon docking. Switching to the inverter will run the reefer overnight, but drains the batteries to 30% by morning. The two 100W solar panels will not re-charge the batteries during the day. I looked at adding more batteries and going up to 600W solar (the max I can add to the current system), but was told (reputable RV Solar company) that that setup will still not do what I want and will still require me to run the generator, PLUS, it is quite costly. So my other option is to replace the residential reefer with one that can run on Propane. So my question is has anyone had a similar experience and how did YOU solve it. And, does anyone have any recommendations on reefers? Thanks for your ideas/suggestions. Albert and Linda

I'm getting ready to snowbird to Desert Hot Springs for a few months this winter. With the cost of propane down at about $2.00 a gallon I was wondering what it would cost to run the refrigerator off of propane compare to shore power. Shore power is 13.5 cents per amp hour and was costing me about $60 per month. The information I was able to look up so far is that the refrigerator is about 500 watts running on shore power. Someone has posted somewhere on the web a formula of calculating the break even point of kwh cost compare to cost of a gallon of propane but I can't seem to find it. The question is how long will a 12 cu feet refrigerator run on a gallon of propane. I figure that about half of the cost of shore power I used last year was for the refrigerator alone but I could be wrong. Does anyone know the calculation?

I have a Dometic two-door (freezer on top) unit, NDR 1062, in a 2007 Tiffin coach. The cooling unit failed in October, 2011 and was replaced by a Viking replacement cooling unit which has worked fine. Until now. After leaving the Tiffin service center in Alabama a few days ago we have noticed that the refrigerator is not cooling properly. The freezer does a good job of freezing ice and keeping it frozen but the refrigerator is not much below ambient. Gas or electric does not seem to make any difference. The burner is clean--no scale, and has a good blue flame. The chimney is good and hot to the touch. Any thoughts on why one part would work OK and one would not?

We finished our Amish Cooling Unit install a couple weeks ago and the fridge is now working great! It was big job but we did it and learned much along the way. David Force from RV Cooling Unit Warehouse was great to deal with and was very helpful! We have created a YouTube video of our experience changing-out the cooling unit, check it out: http://youtu.be/EyCh7aXveow?hd=1 LOL, I know we're not up for a OSCAR but we hope it can be of help to others! Robert & Shelly 2000 American Dream 40' DS Full-timers

I have water getting into my ice cube tub. I have cut back on the cube size. I need some ideas.

The refrigerator on my 1994 Foretravel Grand Villa (U-240) has stopped working. I opened the door several days ago and was hit by a wall of ammonia gas. The existing refrigerator is a Dometic model 4804.004 and I believe it is original. Dometic makes a number of suitable replacements, but I've learned that Atwood has a refrigerator that uses helium rather than hydrogen. Does anyone have any information on this unit. I'm reluctant to spend money on what may be an unproven technology. Thank you. Tom Bowers (Sonoma County, CA)

Thought we would share our experience replacing our failed Norcold 1200LR Cooling unit for a brand-new Amish built unit. Our Norcold to Amish Built Cooling Unit Change-out YouTube Video Hope it helps others, Robert & Shelly 2000 American Dream Full-timers Class of '06

Hello to all. I am new to this forum and new to the RV world. I just bought a 1993 Dutchmen and it has a Norcold 462. When I first brought it home I plugged it in and the freezer made ice after about six hours. The next day I went and checked and it was not working. I am getting 120V to the power plug, but that is as far as I know how to troubleshoot this type of appliance. Can anyone help?

Our NDR1292 refrigerator is not cooling or freezing and I have checked the fuses. Is it better to have it rebuilt or to buy a new unit?

Our winter this year was spent in our new mobile home in Sandpipers Resort in Edinburg, Texas. The motor home has been seriously neglected during this winter. We don't have to winterize in the normal sense. Tanks are drained and the refrigerator emptied and unplugged. We left the heat on and air conditioning when needed. Tires were inflated to maximum inflation pressure and we were parked on wooden blocks. I did wash the motor home several times through the winter and we were in and out moving items to and from the motor home. Still, we were occupied with the new house more than the motor home this winter. This is quite a change after almost ten years living full time in the motor home. Our goal was to leave south Texas on Sunday, May 1. Everything was going according to schedule until Louise came down with a serious cold just days before we were to leave. Fortunately, she had a good head start getting things into the motor home before the cold hit her. The final day was mine with all the mechanical things to tend to, check fluids, fill fresh water tank, move the coach off the blocks and adjust tire pressures. I finished loading the last of my personal items and closed up the house about 5:00 p.m. - yes, 5:00 p.m. We had delays, the starting batteries now 7 1/2 years old decided today was the day to quit. I started the coach using the battery boost from the house batteries. Then the Trailblazer wouldn't shift into neutral for towing. It has a chronic loose connection that no GM dealer has been able to fix. After a number of tries we finally get a shift and we're on our way - out the gate at 6:30 p.m. Our first stop was just 200 miles down the road. We were scheduled for maintenance at Iron Horse RV in San Antonio. Top of the list was to replace the starting batteries. Then there was a drip from the hot water heater that turned out to be a loose connection. That took several tries and replacing a broken fitting to finally solve that problem. The water pump was failing so it was replaced. The big job was replacing the refrigerator. The Norcold 1200 had finally become unusable during our last trip of the fall so when we unplugged it for the winter I knew it was the last time it would run. Our food was packed in ice chests for this trip, it would be transferred to our new refrigerator once it was installed. We chose to have a residential refrigerator installed in place of the Norcold. Iron Horse identified a model which would come close to fitting the space occupied by the Norcold. It was about 4 inches taller and three inches deeper but was the same width. Removing the old and installing the new took about two days with some interruptions for our tech to do other jobs on our coach and occasional assists working with other coaches. We left Iron Horse RV about 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday with good batteries, a working water pump, no drip from the water heater and a cold refrigerator. We spent the night at Riverside RV Park in Waco and then drove to MCD Innovations in McKinney, Texas the next day. The first of our pleated shades had broken just before we parked in the fall and we were unable to get repair because the shade couldn't be disassembled. Knowing that all the rest of the shades are 7 1/2 years old, we decided to replace the whole lot. Being on a schedule we elected to have MCD Innovations measure the windows for us and then ship us the shades for self installation later. With the roll up day/night shades and all our other fix ups we'll have a much improved coach. They got us measured Thursday afternoon and we were ready for an early morning departure on Friday. Our next destination was Denver, Colorado for a family wedding. It is an easy two day drive of about 400 miles each day. We had never driven the route from McKinney to Amarillo before and I really enjoy seeing new country and a new road. From Amarillo to Denver is a route we've traveled many times. We stayed overnight at the Wal-Mart in Dumas, our first night boondocking with the new refrigerator and it did just fine running on the inverter for the night. We arrived at Golden Terraces RV Park about 3:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, right on our planned schedule. Now we have a week of preparation for the wedding. Family visits, planning, scheduling, and on Saturday our youngest niece will be married. For now, we're sitting out a fine spring rain in Denver. The temperature is a cool 43 degrees. Wednesday morning I brushed snow off the Trailblazer. It is good to be back on the road again.

It all started as we prepared to depart from a one-night stay at a campground on Matagorda Bay in Texas. We couldn't resist a morning walk along the seawall in Palacios. When we returned I completed most of the outside work while Louise cooked breakfast. French toast was delicious and welcome on this cool coastal morning. We were just beginning to clean up the kitchen when Louise reached for the refrigerator door to put something away. She pulled the right-hand door on the two-door Norcold 1200LRIM just as she had hundreds of times before. This time the door came off the refrigerator and dropped to the floor! The bottom of a bottle of wine broke from the bottle. A plastic container of tea dropped to the floor and the lid popped off. A variety of other jars and bottles rattled on the floor with the trays that contained them. Louise stood there in shock - holding the door and just looking at this completely unexpected mess on the floor. I finally took the door from Louise's hands and placed it on the floor out of the way. We used half a roll of paper towels to clean up the liquids and rinsed the other containers before putting them back in the half-open refrigerator. As Louise continued with the cleanup I began to analyze the door and the hinge on the refrigerator. How had this unimaginable mess occurred? My post-crash analysis showed a piece of plastic about 2 inches long by 3/8 inch that was held in place by two screws with a metal plate of similar dimensions backing the plastic. Further analysis showed a screw hole in the bottom of the door - but no screw. We had lost a key screw in the door and the door had been hanging by the plastic for who-knows-how-long. When the plastic failed, there was nothing to hold the door on the lower hinge. The upper hinge is simply a pin on the refrigerator that inserts into a hole in the door. Since the pin is inserted from above, the entire weight of the door rests on the lower hinge. When the lower hinge fails, the door falls and "down will come cradle, baby and all!" So if you have this model of refrigerator, get down on the floor and look up under the hinge to see that the screw that anchors the door to the hinge is still in place. Without it, the door will eventually fail. I found that I could put the door on the upper hinge and, with the lower hinge in the open position, the hinge supported the door while the vertical section pinned the door against the refrigerator. The door doesn't open normally, but we can reach around to get anything stored on the right side of the refrigerator. A healthy application of Gorilla Tape made sure that the door didn't move off the lower hinge. There was one small glitch: The door kept dropping out of its latch, which sets off a beeping alarm. Louise can't stand to listen to the beep, so I got a few washers to insert under the door to lift it about 3/16 inch and that did the trick. No more beeping. We traveled non-stop for about six hours before arriving at Rayne, Louisiana, just before sunset. This is a place of special memories for us. We purchased our current motor home at a rally at Rayne. There is a convention center with hundreds of RV hookups. We were told to stop by any time the facilities weren't in use and stay overnight or for a few days. Sure enough, the convention center was completely empty. We pulled in, followed shortly by another motor home. We talked briefly with them. We were looking for 50A, they were happy with 30A. We went on to look for our spot. We arrived at a point where a turn was going to be difficult, so I elected to drive through the dump station. We were almost back to the main road when, WHOA! I hit the brakes. There, resting on the windshield right at eye level was an electrical wire, a single cord of insulated wire supported by and wound around a bare metal wire. It was twilight and I felt lucky to have even spotted it in time to stop. It would likely have cracked the windshield or even worse if it slipped off the windshield onto the front cap of the motor home. I put Louise into the drivers seat and went outside to assess the situation. We could unhook the car, 20 minutes, and then hook up the car in the morning, another 30 minutes. Or I could find something to raise the wire above the motor home. One option was to get on the roof and walk the wire down the roof as we passed under. Then I thought of the wash brush. With its extended handle and a rubber covered handle, I thought it would work. We started off and I had to shout instructions through the window to tell Louise if there was a problem. After a short trial, I moved to the other side of the coach and used a radio to communicate with Louise. We eased our way along without a hitch, over the satellite dome, the front air conditioner, fan vents and sewer vent. Finally the back air conditioner and the ladder and we were free! We found a place to hook up and plugged in. In about 30 minutes a city employee showed up to collect our camping fee. Water, electric and a dump station for $20 a night. I told the employee about the low-hanging wire. We had encountered more than our usual challenges in a single day on the road. The refrigerator was working, maybe better than before. The encounter with the wire hadn't damaged the motor home - or me. We slept well that night. The next morning, the electrical company was out with a truck and secured the line. We were on down I-10 headed for Montgomery, Alabama, and our next adventure.