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Old 04-28-2009, 02:50 PM   #5
chockwald
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Location: Riverside, California
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This is my second Dometic gas fridge. The prior one is/was in my Tioga Class C. What Tom says is true about the ambient temp, etc., however, we found 4 things that helped knock a few degrees off the temp, even in hotter weather. 1st - we bought one of those battery powered fans that sits on the bottom shelf of the fridge. It moves air from the bottom to the top of the fridge. Takes a "D" cell a battery to run, and each battery lasts a long time (only put the battery in when travelling). 2nd - I added a 12 volt fan to the chimney in back of the fridge to move air up the shaft faster. 3rd - I added 2 solar powered fans near the top of the chimney to help vent the air out faster (solar panels mounted directly on top of the chimney, and fans about 6 inches down inside the shaft). These first three shaved about 5-7 degrees of the inside temperature. 4th - on really hot days Elaine puts a frozen 1 gallon jug of water in the fridge during the day. This knocks another 2-3 degrees. At night the frozen jug goes back in the freezer to freeze for another hot day. Anyway, short of replacing the fridge you can gain 5-10 degrees of cooling depending on temp and humidity.

My current dometic already has a 120 volt fan mounted in the chimney just behind the fridge. I have to manually plug it in to run it, and did so most days while in Austin as the temps got into the 90's. It also came with a vinyl shade that attaches directly over the fridge venting on the side of the motorhome and keeps direct sunlight off the vent.....surprisingly makes a big difference. I'll post pictures later of the sun shade, and my current fan setup. These are all inexpensive things you can do to improve the performance of your gas fridge.

There, of course, is a 5th thing you can do, which is fool proof.....only travel where it is 70 degrees all the time.....LOL!!!
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