Dometic Fridge Check Light

[cbraswell]

Hi all,

I’m trying to trouble shoot an issue we have been having with our Dometic fridge in our 2019 19ft. During the last few trips we have been camping off the grid, therefore running the fridge on propane.

It has runs perfectly well throughout the day however at some point during each night the fridge turns off. In the morning when we get up the control panel has the “check” light illuminated.

I understand that the check light typically indicates that the fridge attempted to ignite however it wasn’t successful. The only thing common denominator that I can link it to is most of the nights do have a min of 10 mph wind and at some point during the evening the furnace kicks on. My thought is the pilot light gets blow out or the fridge gets overloaded with the furnace running as well.

I wanted to see if anyone has experienced a similar issue?

[Brian B-P]

The refrigerator doesn't have a pilot light, but wind preventing ignition does seem like a likely candidate to me.

It shouldn't be a propane supply problem, since the furnace works and the propane system is intended to be able to provide far more than these appliances need. On the other hand, propane regulators can have problems at low temperatures.

[pstyer]

What elevation are you camping? We had the same problem above 8,000 feet during a recent trip to Colorado. Our solution was to remove all the outside guards to provide more oxygen to the flame.

Dometic refrigerators are designed to operate below 8,000 feet. It's published in their technical support pages. If you are going to be camping above these elevations often, I would get the trailer into a service dealer and have the air/gas ratio adjusted. The amount of air needs to be increased because of the thin air.
Peter

[cpaharley2008]

Also make sure your optional refer fan is not on.

[EscapeBoulder]

Could it be low propane pressure? Caused by faulty propane regulator (if that’s the right word)? Perhaps when the furnace comes on, the propane pressure drops to a level which triggers the check light?

BTW... We live at 8,300’ elevation in the Colorado Rockies, and haven’t had problem running both the furnace or frig on propane camping as high as 10,000’. At that elevation, the furnace fumes smell a bit like it’s running “rich”, but everything still works. And we have not re-jet’d either appliance, since we also camp as low as below sea level in the California desert!

[pstyer]

You're lucky. Elevation doesn't affect everyone. Some installations have no problems even in the high rocky mountains. Dometic does state that they are designed to operate up to 8,000 feet of elevation. Above that you probably will need to have the flame adjusted.
Peter

[cbraswell]

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I live in Colorado so most of our camping is done at or above 8000 ft. The last few instances this occurred, we were camping above 10,000 ft. I'm going to reach out to our local dealer to see if we can get it adjusted.

I'm still perplexed as to why it only happens at night. My best speculation is that the pressure drops during the night and constricts the airflow.

[alanmalk]

While in general our Dometic seems to run OK at 10,000 feet, it did become cranky earlier this summer - running for a while then refusing to light (with warning light). My fix was the red-neck approach: Beating on the burner orifice with a wrench seemed to do the trick, perhaps dislodging a speck of dust blocking the hole.
--
Alan

[caddoster]

I'm guessing elevation related too, and when it's like that it's kind of hit and miss. On our last trip we have no problem driving thru Yosemite's Tioga Pass to the Mammoth Lakes area.. our campsite was at about 8000ft and fridge ran fine 24x7 but the two times we have the hot water heater turned on the first time it kept blowing out (so we turned it off and left it alone), the 2nd time it blew out twice but ran fine the rest of the way... didn't get to use the furnace so we don't know what would happen.


On the way back we were stuck in traffic at Tioga Pass for about half an hour and that's when the fridge got a check light. I didn't actually know that until much later, but looking at Sensor Push graph I figured it happened during the time we were waiting to get thru the park entrance, which sits at 9950ft.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by cbraswell

I'm still perplexed as to why it only happens at night. My best speculation is that the pressure drops during the night and constricts the airflow.

The outside temperature is lower, causing problems with the propane regulator. At the same time your the lower temperature causes the furnace to run more, increasing propane demand.

When this happens, is your propane regulator covered in frost (even though the outside air temperature is above freezing)? That's a likely regulator problem situtation.

[Bea]

We had a similar issue when we picked up our 2019 Escape 21 from the ETI. The fridge would work for a few hours on propane, then the check light would come on. Fortunately, we camped close to Chilliwack for the first few days in case something like that came up. We took it back to ETI. They worked on it for a couple hours. Bottom-line, they said they could not find anything specific, but they did blow out the various connectors and tubes they could access. That ended up fixing the problem, and it has worked perfectly since. Thus for us, it was likely some piece of debris that may have reduced the flow of propane enough for the check light to come on (rather than altitude).

[tractors1]

Yup, really amazing what a difference just blowing out the orifice and banging on the exhaust pipe makes. Not much comes off the pipe, and can't see anything on the orifice jewel - but the fridge does work a LOT better. Just 20 mins of maintenance is quite worthwhile.