Norcold Refrigerator -

[CAdvoc]

On March 12th, we learned of another coach going up in flames due to a faulty Norcold Refrigerator at TTO! We are so thankful the owners escaped safely!

4 weeks ago, we lost our Norcold absorption cooling unit in our '05 American Eagle 42R Coach. We had had problems with it being `shut down' by our added ARP protection device several times in the days leading up to the complete break down. By "break down," I mean smelling the ammonia leak one Wednesday morning when getting ready for breakfast.

Some years back, being aware of the possibility of a fire from our Norcold unit, we had Paul Unmack of Absorption Refrigeration Protection Control ARPC L.L.C., install an ARP temperature guard device added to the rear of the Norcold. Paul Unmack is the designer of this ARP safety unit. This unit is simply a `safe-guard' which helps prevent fridge fires happening with these apparently faulty units. I say "units" because I've been told that Dometic Refrigerators have the same problem as well.

When we looked into having a residential unit installed, we were given a figure of $5,500.00! Way out of our budget. Instead, we had Texas Custom Coach of Pipe Creek, TX install a new Amish Cooling Unit on our otherwise `OK' Norcold Refrigerator, for $2,000.00. Texas Custom Coach is among the few top coach tech service centers we have across this country and they do top notch work!

If you're handy and knowledgeable working with your hands and electricity, you can reduce the cost of either a new cooling unit for your current fridge, or installing a new residential unit for less than 50% of having it done professionally.

We also had the ARP control device installed on this new Amish Unit cooling unit as well. It might help for you to know the manufacturer of the Amish Cooling unit supports the use of the ARP safety device when neither Norcold or Dometic do.

You can go to the following URL to check out prices for the Amish Cooling Unit, the ARP, etc. for yourself:

http://rvcoolingunit.com

Below is the info for contacting Paul Unmack to discuss any concerns you may have. We have found Paul to be both accommodating when we call, and informative in answering our questions.

INFORMATION:
Paul Unmack
Absorption Refrigeration Protection Control

ARPC L.L.C.

ARPrvsafe@gmail.com

(406) 494-1959

[lmsooter]

That price for a residential refrigerator is way out of line. We replaced our Norcold in June 2015 with a 20 cu ft Samsung French Door for just under $2000 installed.

[manholt]

Yea! My 2 door "Zero 30 cu. ft." at home came in at $4800....Fridge only, Freezer is in Pantry ! WOW, they saw you coming !

Hate to hear about anyone throwing 2 grand at a Nocold to keep the POS going. Next time go to Lows or Home Depot ! Surprised that TCC went along with it....I was there at end of Jan.

Carl

[jleamont]

I really can't speak to this but....I payed under $1000 for the total. I did the labor so that is why I cannot really speak to this but I will say it only took me from start to finish 6 hours, and I had to remove a window to get the old one out.

I couldn't sleep at night charging someone that much for such little work

[obedb]

I have just finished research on what causes fires in RV absorption refrigerators. If I understand the website, when there is a rupture of the system containing ammonia and some hydrogen, and there is a substantial heat (propane burner) a fire could occur. My take away from this is that an electric heat source would not generate temperatures high enough to cause a fire. I still have not acquired the ability to post a hyperlink for the website. Maybe one of these days!! aegforensics.com

[obedb]

Lesson learned by me. Run the fridge on a/c. Criticism of my conclusion welcome. We travel with pets and when we leave them in the RV we worry about them. Cats are not eager to jump into a vehicle. Dogs usually are.

[wolfe10]

Run the fridge on a/c. Criticism of my conclusion welcome.

If you are going to only run your refrigerator on 120 VAC, a residential refrigerator is MATERIALLY more efficient than an absorption refrigerator. PERIOD.

Not suggesting one over the other, but if you are only running it on 120 VAC, your decision is already made for you.

[obedb]

Brett/ At my age I really don't want to spend several thousand $$$ on a domestic refrigerator unless I have to. I have seen Joe's installation and it is remarkable that he was able to do all of that for that amount of money and with only his DWs help. Of course he is 28 years younger than me and a talented wrench. I am not worried about the efficiency factor when I am plugged into park power or for that matter, if I was able to get the unit up our steep driveway and plug in here. My question/ are my conclusions about fire hazards when plugged into 120 ac correct? If not, then I need to consider a domestic refrigerator. If I am wrong about the lack of a fire hazard please tell me. Not my area of expertise , and THOSE areas are few.

[huffypuff]

I talked to that guy at a rally from Absorption Refrigeration Protection Control. He claims the 2 heating elements overheat and cracks the metal which causes the leak. He had a sample he showed me. Norcold put a box with a temperature probe on the heating elements to trip if the elements overheat. His design puts the temperature probe above the heating elements which my opinion is too late to prevent the crack. Norcold has to be reset with a magnet as they want customers to have the unit inspected if it overheats. His design reset automatically regardless of the reason of the trip. The bottom line is, if you decide to get this different mouse trap installed, please do not disconnect the Norcold protection unit.

[manholt]

My conclusion on the cause of fire=electrical. Rupture and heat, plausible with a combination of heat sources. I'm assuming that coach was hooked up, though OP did not say. Have no idea what TTO is?!

ObedB.

Your right. Joe is young and good at what he does. Intelligent and imaginative along with ability is a formidable combination. Glad he's on our side! You have met him and I hope to do the same this summer on the way to or from W. Springfield !

Carl

[tbutler]

The bill for our residential refrigerator came it at $2100 plus the $900 for the refrigerator. That bill also included a new set of chassis batteries and a water pump as well as some work on our water heater so it was likely near $2500 for the complete job. I didn't lift a hand. Two days, in and out and done. It has more room than the NoCold and automatic defrost, ice and water through the door, and I can park on any slope, no worries about keeping it level. I'd never go back!

[jleamont]

ObedB and Carl, thank you for the kind words.

I considered replacing the cooling unit on our Norcold with the "Amish made" design. Our first coach had a Dometic Americana that was 16 years old and worked great. I was sold on the absorption design until August 11th 2014.

Here is the events of that day and what stopped me. Ours ruptured I was plugged into electric sitting on my chair under the awning in Colonial Williamsburg VA at a CG reading about Robyn Williams, very sad. I caught a whiff of what smelled like ammonia and the fridge gas igniter started to click like it was switching to gas, I though this was odd so I got up to investigate (I thought my DW tripped a breaker inside) I heard a pop a flame hue came out of the side wall vent, I pulled the side wall cover off and at this point I really smelled the ammonia, very hot inside also it was still clicking like it was trying to ignite, I grabbed a hand full of wires and pulled while I was yelling for everyone to get out of the motorhome (DW and kids were inside). It happened so fast my heart was racing, I was sweating. It scorched the inside wall area and the back of the fridge but for some lucky reason it didn't go up in flames, or I was fortunate enough to catch it in time. I pulled the 12v fuse, shut off the breakers to it and turned off the gas main on the tank. I had to open all of the windows and roof vents on the coach, the interior stunk like burnt plastic and ammonia. I discharged a CO2 fire extinguisher up the back side of the unit just to make sure there were no hot spots that I couldn't see.

After a few hours I calmed down, threw out all of our food. The following morning I jumped in the Jeep and went to Wal Mart, bought a small apartment size refrigerator, that was funny it didn't fit in the Jeep, I had to put the top down and seat belt it in the passenger seat. I placed it where the new sofa is now and plugged it in.

It worked great, so good we were sold on the residential change over, plus the DW told me under no circumstances will she or our kids sleep in this coach with a gas refrigerator ever again (she told me "you better figure this out or this coach is out of here"). She nor I slept that night, every noise or smell we both jumped up.

After reading Tom's post with the fantastic photos I was sold. I went on a quest to Home Depot when we returned to home to locate the most energy efficient model that would fit in the existing hole without serious modification of the hole in the wall. I also wanted a simple unit with as little to no electronics, as I was concerned about those bouncing down the road. The model we decided on is old school, just a knob you twist to set your temperature, no ice maker. I still run the 4 house batteries with the same 2000 watt Trace inverter that came with the coach, I just have the auto start generator set now just in case.

That was a day I will never forget.

[manholt]

Lucky you! Probably burnt to ground had you been shopping! Or sitting somewhere else....WOW.

[obedb]

Joe/ What a day in Williamsburg!!! Frightening!!!

We have a Dometic New Dimension Refeigerator that came with the coach so that makes it 13 years old. Ray said the two heating elements on the Norcold units are responsible for the the cracks. Gotta figure a similar setup on the Dometic. I visited the aftermarket safety device linked by the OP. It is not expensive but Ray is a smart man and he was not impressed with it. Good enough for me. This all blows up my thoughts about running on 120 for safety.

Now what do I do? The coach breakers and fuses are mounted directly below the Dometic. That will probably make a difficult fit for a residential refrigerator, narrowing size and choice plus the charger inverter is a MSW. Might need a pure sine wave unit. More money.

The Dometics are quite expensive and possibly the Norcold units also. Seems to me that coach builders could soon start offering residential units as standard equipment in more models than just the high end stuff and save money in the process.

[jleamont]

ObedB, after that mess I read up on them also. I always thought Dometic was not a concern, but that was wrong, they all have their problems also, so do residential units. At the end of the day any appliance can catch fire if plugged in to 120VAC, even an light or a hair dryer not in use. The absorption design has more ignition and fuel sources and as we all know "to the lowest bidder" isn't always the best route to take when sourcing components.

We looked at a 2013 Fleetwood Excursion in April of 2014 (new leftover), it had a residential refrigerator in it from the factory, which was the first I had heard of it. I was taken by it at first, but then thought about it and it started to make sense, it was equipped with a GE, from memory it looked just like the one we installed, not sure if it actually was or not. After we did our conversion I had child safety locks on the doors just in case (they didn't pop open once) We went to Hershey RV show that September and I photo'd the different door lock designs that were in the new coaches with residential units, I fabricated my own and use it on ours.

Our inverter is a Trace/Xantrex RV2012 modified sine wave according to the build sheet I have, and if it was replaced it still has a Trace unit in it (saw it the other day) According to them this model has more steps and a smoothing to be almost sine wave. I would love to scope it and see what it actually produces. So I called Xantrex I got the full story, they explained to me that running a refrigerator without all of the electronics was a good choice on my part, while it is not a sine wave its not as rough as a regulator modified sine wave.

Obedb, you might want to call your inverter co and ask what they think.

[BruceN53]

Wasn't there a recall to fix/repair and prevent fires on these units?

[jleamont]

Wasn't there a recall to fix/repair and prevent fires on these units?

Yup, didn't do a thing....well the red light was flashing on the module, not sure what that meant normally it didn't.

[manholt]

50 re calls later and "NO COLD" still has a problem! Dometic didn't have as many, but enough. Samsung residential does not require pure sine wave! They come in many sizes.

Joe. My first residential frig. was on a Winnebago Tour 40 foot, 07' a Samsung 3 door French model. Big, 25cu.

Carl

[jleamont]

The one I put in is at 15.5 cu ft, not real big but larger that the 4 door Norcold. Our last coach only had 6.0cuft. we made it work, but it was a little tight. Might sound crazy but I like to grocery shop locally where we are staying, stuff you cant purchase at home is always attractive to us to give it a try.

While passing through Texas in 2013 we stopped at a WalMart and bought these Tapatio Doritos, we loved them, cant get them up here. Since we love Cajun food and TexMex, when we head south we are always looking for stuff to take home, one benefit of traveling with a refrigerator/freezer.

[manholt]

Understand....I like liver worst and head cheese. I can get it in Central Texas and Abbeville, LA.

[desertdeals69]

I talked to that guy at a rally from Absorption Refrigeration Protection Control. He claims the 2 heating elements overheat and cracks the metal which causes the leak. He had a sample he showed me. Norcold put a box with a temperature probe on the heating elements to trip if the elements overheat. His design puts the temperature probe above the heating elements which my opinion is too late to prevent the crack. Norcold has to be reset with a magnet as they want customers to have the unit inspected if it overheats. His design reset automatically regardless of the reason of the trip. The bottom line is, if you decide to get this different mouse trap installed, please do not disconnect the Norcold protection unit.

The Norcold sensor is installed on the outside of the insulation and turns the power off at 800 degrees. If the outside of the insulation is that hot it probably is already on fire. The ARP control sensor is attached to the boiler tube and senses when the temp reaches 400 and turns off the power for 10 minutes and lets it cool down. When it comes back on if the temp climbs past that point it shuts off for 20 minutes. If the problem is not taken care of it does it 5 times and then stays off until manually reset. The temp is never let go high enough to cause the internal damage. The rise in temp is caused by not being level or going up or down steep hills. The position of the sensor on the ARP control is covered by the patent so it can't be copied.

[huffypuff]

Oh nooo the insulation is cut open and sensor is hose clamped directly to the heater elements. Then the insulation is tie wrapped closed. If someone installed the Norcold recall on your coach like that he needs to be fired. I stand by my comment that the Norcold is better as it detect the problem at the source and requires inspection before resetting it. Auto reset can cause a fire as the problem could be present.

[huffypuff]

Yup, didn't do a thing....well the red light was flashing on the module, not sure what that meant normally it didn't.

If the red light was flashing it means the power should of been off if hooked up correctly.

[obedb]

Gotta get a residential refrigerator. I have always hated the worry of being off level. Understand the newer fridges are more forgiving, and although I was really careful with our first Dometic , I have grown weary of remembering to ask DW to run back to turn the unit off before anticipated off level situations.

[manholt]

ObedB.

Welcome to the 21st Century! Would it not be nice to pull into a place and not worry about a level spot? Sometimes it's a good thing to give up on the old and embrace a new thing... As you said, you have a steep driveway, no worry about fridge. Just breaks!

Carl