Saturday, April 30, 2016

The Thing About RV Fridges...

I read some where that you have to be level or your RV fridge will not work properly.  This never hit home before to me because I have been at some seriously unlevel places (Pismo Beach craptastic Encore RV park) and the fridge always seemed to work fine.

That's because I had hook-ups.  Shore power, as they call it.  I wasn't boondocking.

Now I've been boondocking for two months and I see what people were talking about.  When you boondock (no hook-ups for power, water, or sewer) the fridge runs on propane.  My fridge is right behind my little office and I can hear when the propane is getting pulled into the fridge to cool it.  It's like when you hear your fridge kick on at your house to cool it.  For me it sounds like liquid filling up something and then a furnace. 

I really don't know how propane and flame can cool a fridge, but it works.  Who am I to knock it?

Well, here is where the whole 'you have to be level or your fridge won't work' thing comes in.  If you're too tilted the propane can't fight gravity to pour into your fridge. 

We're off-level both front to back and side to side.  Not that much.  I have levels on the side and front of the RV and the bubble is just one line off from center.  I thought that would be fine...but the fridge is having problems. 

The check light is coming on now and again telling us that the fridge isn't working.  The solution to this is to turn it on and off.  That's worked so far.  The propane fills and the fridge works again.  If we don't catch it it's a problem. 

I think it's trying to draw propane when we're walking around sometimes and we're messing it up because we're already a little slanted.  I thought it was too mild to worry about, but next time I will take out blocks for the wheels and get us as level as possible.  I was just too lazy to to it this time.

No comments:

Post a Comment