Tips and Tricks
Hot Weather Refrigerator Tips
Russ and Tina De Maris

Keeping your RV refrigerator happy in warm weather is a matter of paying attention to your environment and reacting accordingly. When we say environment, we’re not just talking about how hot it is outside, although that’s certainly one of the biggest considerations.

First, are you a boondocker, or does your lifestyle take you to an RV park? When things get real hot, a lot of RVers drop anchor in an RV park to benefit from relatively inexpensive electricity. After all, firing up the generator in these high priced fuel days can easily exceed the cost of the daily rate of some RV parks.

But with the convenience of the RV park means the sharing of the electrical system with others. Beware! Not only can your air conditioner unit be damaged by low voltage, your refrigerator--set to run on shore power--may not cool nearly like you think it ought. What’s the reason behind that? If the heating element in your refrigerator is rated at 120 volts, and the shore power system is delivering less, you’ll get less cooling power. Let’s say the high demand for electricity reduces the delivered voltage to 108 volts, then the actual available power at the heating element has been reduced by 10%, meaning your unit will operate at 90% of normal. If you’re dealing with hot outdoor temperatures, your cooling power will definitely suffer.

The answer? Run your refrigerator on LP gas, so it won’t be affected by the "brownout" syndrome. And help your refrigerator along by keeping the outside wall on the refir side in the shade where possible. Many fulltimers find that throwing a sack of ice in a cake pan in the refrigerator compartment will help keep those tender veggies happy, and make the refrigerator not slave to keep up. We’ve found by doing so we didn’t need to buy more ice because it had melted away, more for the fact we’d use it to chill our drinks.

Finally, another trick that has stood many in good stead is to increase the circulation in the back of the refrigerator.  Some swear by "propping" open the outside access door. We've had much success in adding a small 12-volt fan in the back, pointing the flow up and over the condensor coils. Small cooling fans like these are often used to cool power supplies in computers, so check out Radio Shack or the corner computer stand. Draw your power off the 12 volt terminals supplying the refrigerator--use your voltmeter to verify correct polarity and voltage!

© Copyright 2006 by RVbookstore.com