how often do you need to defrost your refrigerator

[GypsyCliff]

Those of you who full time, or go on longer trips, how often do you need to defrost your refrigerator. The longest I've ever had mine on was 2 weeks and it was fine. The reason I ask is through out the year we do 3 longer than a week trips and between do several long weekends. I'm thinking it would be much easier to just leave some things in there without turning it off to make packing up for long weekends easier. We do plug the motor home in to the house electric while at home. Thanks for any suggestions.

Cliff

[fulltiming]

We have a Norcold 2 way refrigerator and find that we can go for several months without the need to defrost. When we are not traveling the coach is unoccupied and therefore the refrigerator door rarely gets opened. We check it monthly and clean it up or defrost it about every six to 9 months. We traveled on 3 separate occasions this year for a total of about 15 weeks. The last time we defrosted our unit was in early March. We do keep the refrigerator on all the time If you have a stand alone icemaker, they need to be defrosted more frequently. However, we empty ours out, turn it off and leave the door open slightly when we are not using the coach so it hasn't had to be defrosted this year. The little frost that collects during a 1-2 month usage naturally defrosts itself when you turn it off and leave it open.

[The Newell]

Hi Cliff,

Defrost frequency depends on the humidity in your area and how often you open the door. We generally did ours about once in 5-6 months, depending on location. The condition of the door seals also has an effect - air leaks increase the need to defrost.