Norcold Ice Maker

[Charliem06]

We have a 2009 Winnebago Adventurer with a 4 door Norcold that stopped producing ice cubes. Is there a commercial product available such as Whirlpool that is equal to the Norcold?

Thank you.

[wolfe10]

First step is to determine what is wrong. It may indeed be the ice maker itself, but may be the solenoid that controls water flow to the ice maker or the line from solenoid up the back of the refrigerator. Those plastic lines are often a failure item, becoming brittle and cracking. And, though replacement requires that the refrigerator at least be scooted forward and accessed from the roof or top side vent, the lines themselves are available at most hardware stores.

[whiteeagle]

The first two times I had this same question, it was because I had shut off the water pump ... is that possible ?

[kingfr]

We have a 2009 Winnebago Adventurer with a 4 door Norcold that stopped producing ice cubes. Is there a commercial product available such as Whirlpool that is equal to the Norcold?

Thank you.

A 21.7 CF Whirlpool side by side fits very nicely in the hole vacated by the Norcold and is light years better. We made this change last month! It works great, ice cream is now solid!

[hermanmullins]

A 21.7 CF Whirlpool side by side fits very nicely in the hole vacated by the Norcold and is light years better. We made this change last month! It works great, ice cream is now solid!

Frank, how does the unit hold up when moving? Will it work OK on your inverter? Do you just raise the ice maker level when traveling? Would love to hear how well it works. We keep our coach in our barn pluged in when we are not on the road. We always shut down the Norcold 1200 when in the barn. Would be nice to have a household unit that could be left on.

[tbutler]

We installed a Whirlpool ED2GVEXVD in our motor home as a replacement for the Norcold 1200. It did require some cabinet modifications. The Whirlpool is about 4" taller than the Norcold 1200. It is also about three inches deeper than the Norcold. Some of that can be accommodated by placing the Whirlpool deeper into the existing cabinet. The Whirlpool doesn't need the clearance behind the refrigerator that the Norcold 1200 does. Finally, the Whirlpool has handles on the doors that stick out about 2" beyond the doors. This all makes the Whirlpool extend about 3" beyond the position of your current Norcold 1200. This is a factor in our case as our refrigerator is located in a hallway passage so the passage is narrowed by about 3". This requires me to turn slightly sideways to pass by the handles of the refrigerator door. I don't mind doing this as I am so happy to have the household refrigerator as a replacement for the Norcold 1200. The techs that did the replacement said that the weight of the Norcold 1200 was greater than the weight of the Whirlpool. They lifted it, I didn't!

Herman, to answer your questions about the Whirlpool when moving, our experience is that we leave the ice maker on, haven't had a problem. It makes lots of ice so you could shut it down when traveling and not run yourself short on ice. In fact, it produced the first ice just 2 hours after we plugged it in, I was grinning when I heard the ice fall! The refrigerator travels well. It has several drawers for small items, vegetables, etc. and large shelves in the door. There are also slide out glass shelves. All is working well for us so far. Because the Whirlpool is run with a compressor, it is not sensitive to being kept level as the Norcold 1200 was. We run ours when traveling. We have a 3000 W inverter and 4 x 6V household batteries. It seems to me to use much less electric than when we had the Norcold 1200 running on gas though I can't be sure of that. My electricity gauges indicate it draws about 1 amp when running on the cooling cycle! When it cycles off, the usage level seems to drop to zero. I suspect it is near but not really zero. The Whirlpool is automatic defrost and the defrost cycle is demand driven, not a scheduled every day thing if not needed. As an added bonus, you have ice and water dispensers in the door. It is an energy star appliance so is designed to minimize energy use. It runs quiet but not as quiet as the Norcold 1200. If the motor home is quiet, I can pick up the hum of the compressor but it doesn't keep me awake at night! In fact I sleep better since I don't have to worry about the Norcold 1200.

We purchased the Whirlpool at Lowe's and had it delivered directly to Iron Horse RV in San Antonio where we had the cabinet modified and the installation done. I have a set of pictures that shows what the job looks like.

[wolfe10]

We may be getting a little off track here.

The OP's ice maker in not working and he is looking to replace or repair the ice maker, not the whole refrigerator.

Though, of course, replacing the whole refrigerator WOULD solve the ice maker problem!

Brett

[tbutler]

We may be getting a little off track here.

The OP's ice maker in not working and he is looking to replace or repair the ice maker, not the whole refrigerator.

Though, of course, replacing the whole refrigerator WOULD solve the ice maker problem!

Brett

While repairing or replacing the ice maker would be a solution, Charliem06 did ask if there was a "commercial product available such as Whirlpool that is equal to the Norcold?" I'm reading that to be a question about replacing the refrigerator, not the ice maker. I don't think anyone would look for an ice maker to fit a different companies refrigerator.

[hermanmullins]

We installed a Whirlpool ED2GVEXVD in our motor home as a replacement for the Norcold 1200. It did require some cabinet modifications. The Whirlpool is about 4" taller than the Norcold 1200. It is also about three inches deeper than the Norcold. Some of that can be accommodated by placing the Whirlpool deeper into the existing cabinet. The Whirlpool doesn't need the clearance behind the refrigerator that the Norcold 1200 does. Finally, the Whirlpool has handles on the doors that stick out about 2" beyond the doors. This all makes the Whirlpool extend about 3" beyond the position of your current Norcold 1200. This is a factor in our case as our refrigerator is located in a hallway passage so the passage is narrowed by about 3". This requires me to turn slightly sideways to pass by the handles of the refrigerator door. I don't mind doing this as I am so happy to have the household refrigerator as a replacement for the Norcold 1200. The techs that did the replacement said that the weight of the Norcold 1200 was greater than the weight of the Whirlpool. They lifted it, I didn't!

Herman, to answer your questions about the Whirlpool when moving, our experience is that we leave the ice maker on, haven't had a problem. It makes lots of ice so you could shut it down when traveling and not run yourself short on ice. In fact, it produced the first ice just 2 hours after we plugged it in, I was grinning when I heard the ice fall! The refrigerator travels well. It has several drawers for small items, vegetables, etc. and large shelves in the door. There are also slide out glass shelves. All is working well for us so far. Because the Whirlpool is run with a compressor, it is not sensitive to being kept level as the Norcold 1200 was. We run ours when traveling. We have a 3000 W inverter and 4 x 6V household batteries. It seems to me to use much less electric than when we had the Norcold 1200 running on gas though I can't be sure of that. My electricity gauges indicate it draws about 1 amp when running on the cooling cycle! When it cycles off, the usage level seems to drop to zero. I suspect it is near but not really zero. The Whirlpool is automatic defrost and the defrost cycle is demand driven, not a scheduled every day thing if not needed. As an added bonus, you have ice and water dispensers in the door. It is an energy star appliance so is designed to minimize energy use. It runs quiet but not as quiet as the Norcold 1200. If the motor home is quiet, I can pick up the hum of the compressor but it doesn't keep me awake at night! In fact I sleep better since I don't have to worry about the Norcold 1200.

We purchased the Whirlpool at Lowe's and had it delivered directly to Iron Horse RV in San Antonio where we had the cabinet modified and the installation done. I have a set of pictures that shows what the job looks like.

Your pictures are great. Were you able to plug into the same outlet that the norcold was using? Tom I don't know if you know that Lowe's give a 10% discount to Veterans. We will be doing just this early next year. Thanks for the pictures.

[tbutler]

Your pictures are great. Were you able to plug into the same outlet that the norcold was using?

We will be doing just this early next year. Thanks for the pictures.

Herman, we were able to use the same outlet that the Norcold was plugged into. Anyone planning to do this should check their power supply to the refrigerator compartment. If you can run that outlet off the inverter, you are set. It would be possible to re-wire but that complicates the operation. Also, I would mention we run the refrigerator overnight when we boondock and the batteries fare much better than when we had the Norcold.

By the way, I've added a couple of links to my first post that give info on the specific model of refrigerator and Iron Horse RV.

[hermanmullins]

Herman, we were able to use the same outlet that the Norcold was plugged into. Anyone planning to do this should check their power supply to the refrigerator compartment. If you can run that outlet off the inverter, you are set. It would be possible to re-wire but that complicates the operation. Also, I would mention we run the refrigerator overnight when we boondock and the batteries fare much better than when we had the Norcold.

By the way, I've added a couple of links to my first post that give info on the specific model of refrigerator and Iron Horse RV.

Tom, Since we both have Monacos I would assume I have the same wiring.

Again nice post.

[kingfr]

Frank, how does the unit hold up when moving? Will it work OK on your inverter? Do you just raise the ice maker level when traveling? Would love to hear how well it works. We keep our coach in our barn pluged in when we are not on the road. We always shut down the Norcold 1200 when in the barn. Would be nice to have a household unit that could be left on.

As Tom noted, it travels just fine. We do not turn off the Icemaker. There was more than enough room behind the Norcold to accept the Whirlpool. I think that the installer removed some wood in the hole, however there was enough of a gap over the Whirlpool to warrant a wood piece to fill the gap. The installer did move the power outlet to the "Basement" for clearance. The Whirlpool goes almost to the outside wall of the coach. He plugged the roof vent and we installed a plate in place of the vent behind the Norcold. We also replaced the 2KW MSW inverter with a 2.8KW Magnum pure sine inverter, and upgraded the 4 6V flood cell house batteries with 6 6V AGM batteries. Our batteries were 4 years old and probably were due to be replaced anyway. In our case, the refer is in the hall between the kitchen and the bath. We actually have a little more clearance between the refer doors and the opposite wall. I know this because we have a wire kennel for our dogs which we move from the LR to the BR in front of the refer. It is easier to move now. (Our Norcold had raised wood panels which probably took up more room.) He also installed some drawer slide stops on the doors to keep them from flying open on the road.

All in all, the RR upgrade was fairly expensive, but worth it. We now have a great refer, DW loves it, and I am no longer concerned about the Norcold burning down the house. (Yes, we had the "Recall" done!)

[ambyn]

Our Norcold ice maker had some problems a couple of years ago. A couple of suggestions -

1. Remove the icemaker and let it completely thaw out, reinstall and see if it then works. If this is the case it could be that the water level needs to be adjusted to make smaller cubes. Ours was set too high or we were tipped a little and they froze in a way that would not let them be ejected from the ice maker. When this happened we did notice a soft grinding sound from the ice maker.

2. It could be that the motor inside the timer on the end of the ice maker is bad or the gears inside it have been stripped (happened to my daughter's maytag that I just fixed). The motor is contained in a module behind the white cover on the end of the ice maker. The cover pulls off with a little effort exposing the water level adjustment screw, a large gear, and multiple test points built into the motor module. I am attaching a Norcold manual that I found online that has an extensive section in it for testing the ice maker (page 54). You should be able to determine if the module is bad following the manual. You will need a good multimeter for the tests. I used this info to trouble shoot our problem in item 1 and my daughter's problem. Fortunately both ice makers have the same motor module.

I found a replacement motor module online for just under $50 on ebay from applianceparts.com. Here is the link to one of the eBay listings http://cgi.ebay.com/Icemaker-Motor-Module-Assembly-8201515-fits-Whirlpool-/290583114002?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a81a7112

Here is the Norcold manual that I used: http://bryantrv.com/docs2/docs/ncold1200.pdf

Do to the way the ice maker fits in my 1200 the water level screw is hard to get at. I drilled a small hole in the plastic cover opposite the screw and marked the cover for which way would increase or decrease the water level. We have not had a problem since I got the water level properly adjusted.

Let us know how you make out.

Good Luck!

Amby N