Photos of refrigerator venting for 21NE?

[Johnspierce]

Hi,

I have a 2023 21NE and my Norcold 7 fridge has not worked right on propane since brand new.
- It works perfectly on electricity - freezer down to 5 degrees, fridge down to 35 degrees F
- On propane, the freezer will get down to 12 degrees and the fridge will get down to 40, but it won't hold. After it's been running a while the fridge jumps up to 70 degrees on a 75 degree day. The freezer warms up too, but not as bad - maybe 25 degrees. It behaves the same regardless on if there is food in the fridge or not.
- I've checked the propane flow -- 11 inches WC before and after the valve in back. No propane leaks
- Excellent strong blue flame at the orifice.
- Heater, stove and oven all work perfectly.
- I've cooled it off on electricity to be VERY cold and about 3 hrs after switching to propane, temp jumps up to mid-60's

As I said, this hasn't ever worked right since brand new -- I am thinking either the venting wasn't done correctly or it's blocked. I haven't pulled the fridge out yet...

- Does anyone have photos of the 21NE bottom and top vent and what it is supposed to look like?
- Is there an exhaust fan behind the fridge that pushes air out the top of the camper? Does anyone have a photo of it?

thanks!
John

 

[D&L]

Hi John

I have the 2023 5.0 with the Norcold 7. I was not pleased with the performance of mine. The cabinets and wall beside the fridge would get hot when ran on propane. I decided to pull it out and check the venting and it was not 100%. I went to the installation manual and followed the specs to repair. I may have went a little overboard on more insulation and sealing the back edges of the fridge.

I am pleased with the repair. I now run the Norcold 7 on three and it keeps the freezer at 0 to 5 degrees, the fridge at 35 to 38 degrees depending on the out side temp.

There is a fan on the back of the fridge with a temp switch. Its mounted to the back of the fridge.

Sorry I have no pictures. I hope this helps.

Dan

 

[Johnspierce]

Hi John

I have the 2023 5.0 with the Norcold 7. I was not pleased with the performance of mine. The cabinets and wall beside the fridge would get hot when ran on propane. I decided to pull it out and check the venting and it was not 100%. I went to the installation manual and followed the specs to repair. I may have went a little overboard on more insulation and sealing the back edges of the fridge.

I am pleased with the repair. I now run the Norcold 7 on three and it keeps the freezer at 0 to 5 degrees, the fridge at 35 to 38 degrees depending on the out side temp.

There is a fan on the back of the fridge with a temp switch. Its mounted to the back of the fridge.

Sorry I have no pictures. I hope this helps.

Dan

 

[Johnspierce]

This does help, thank you Dan.

 

[TZBrown]

If your battery monitor is above the refrigerator, or any other easily removable item, here is something to check.

Remove the item, pull out far enough to see inside with a flashlight. There is probably no insulation above the fridge, and if you look closely you can probably see that the rear filler, above the fridge to the ceiling area has openings.

I added a filler through the hole, folded to get it inside, then used probes to position it. Then filled the cavity above the fridge with bat type insulation, again through the hole.

In my case the gap at the rear caused heat to be caught above the fridge and down the wall at the dinet area, instead of exiting out the roof vent. 2018 21C

 

[Chamberman]

You mentioned that the fridge begins to warm up after a period of time when running on propane. Is the propane heat running all the time even when the fridge is warming up? Or is it shutting the propane flame off prematurely and allowing the fridge to heat up? If so this may point to a control problem.

Even when running on electric the heat generated by the heater element has to be vented out of the trailer cavity through the exact same vent system. If the venting was that bad then I would expect that even the electric cooling should be somewhat affected, but it sounds like your electric cooling is fine. You mentioned that you had a strong blue flame, however you should still pull and clean the orifice. In researching and working on my fridge in the past I've seen others report that their flame seemed fine, but when they eventually pulled the orifice for cleaning and then reinstalled it the fridge was cooling normally again. Its a pretty quick process to pull and clean it on the older Dometic and I would think it should be pretty simple on the Norcold too. It's definitely worth the effort to eliminate that as a possible problem.

 

[Johnspierce]

If your battery monitor is above the refrigerator, or any other easily removable item, here is something to check.

Remove the item, pull out far enough to see inside with a flashlight. There is probably no insulation above the fridge, and if you look closely you can probably see that the rear filler, above the fridge to the ceiling area has openings.

I added a filler through the hole, folded to get it inside, then used probes to position it. Then filled the cavity above the fridge with bat type insulation, again through the hole.

In my case the gap at the rear caused heat to be caught above the fridge and down the wall at the dinet area, instead of exiting out the roof vent. 2018 21C

Removing the trim panel at the top of the fridge and also looking down the sides, I can see there is no insulation above the fridge and I can see the filler has openings. In addition, the gap on the sides is larger than it should be. I suspect what you have written here is correct; heat is being trapped above and on the sides of the refrigerator and is not going out the vent on top as it should.

Thank you!

 

[Johnspierce]

You mentioned that the fridge begins to warm up after a period of time when running on propane. Is the propane heat running all the time even when the fridge is warming up? Or is it shutting the propane flame off prematurely and allowing the fridge to heat up? If so this may point to a control problem.

Even when running on electric the heat generated by the heater element has to be vented out of the trailer cavity through the exact same vent system. If the venting was that bad then I would expect that even the electric cooling should be somewhat affected, but it sounds like your electric cooling is fine. You mentioned that you had a strong blue flame, however you should still pull and clean the orifice. In researching and working on my fridge in the past I've seen others report that their flame seemed fine, but when they eventually pulled the orifice for cleaning and then reinstalled it the fridge was cooling normally again. Its a pretty quick process to pull and clean it on the older Dometic and I would think it should be pretty simple on the Norcold too. It's definitely worth the effort to eliminate that as a possible problem.

Yes, the propane burner for the boiler is running 24/7 "trying" to cool off the fridge. I did replace the entire gas valve and orifice assembly and got a "slight" improvement in cooling, but not enough to fix the problem. I'm pretty certain the heat is getting trapped and is not vented properly.

As I said, it's been doing this since it was new, so I suspect the venting was not done properly.

Pulling the fridge next...

 

[Charliej]

I had a similar issue. The round galvanized “chimney” was the culprit. When the system is cold reach around the back of the pipe with both hands. The pipe is clipped together in the back. Mine wasn’t. You can feel it and intuitively clip it back together. That solved my issue.

 

[Johnspierce]

RV Fridge is FIXED!

Several things were done:

1) The clearance on the sides of the fridge were close to 2" on one side and 1" on the other which should have been between 1/8" and 1/4", so more insulation was added to get to the recommended specs
2) There was no baffle above the refrigerator, so one was fashioned using wood paneling to help redirect the hot air to the roof vent
3) This was the big one: The damper on the top of the flue was jammed down on the top blocking almost all of the air from coming out of the flue and forcing it to come out the sides and into the compartment where the gas valve is damaging it and requiring replacement. The damper itself was fine, but was just installed incorrectly blocking air flow.

Result: fridge on setting 2 now keeps the fridge at about 33-35 degrees with nothing in it. It took 3 1/2 hrs to go from turning it on to 31 degrees on setting 5. Very happy with this!

Thanks so much for the people who replied to my thread which was instrumental in getting this fixed and ultimately making my fridge work better than the one I had in my previous Escape (which worked very well BTW).

John

 

[D&L]

Congratulation John,

I glad you got if fixed. Good description on what you did to repair. Happy Camping.

Dan