Fridge on Gas?

[grill-n-go]

I tried to run my frig on gas this weekend for the first time, without success.

Is the needle suppose to stay in the green area? Mine goes to green will I am holding the gas button and pushing the striker repeatedly. Once I release everything it slowly drifts back to the white area.

Is this normal?

Thanks,

[shunter917]

As far as I know, it's supposed to stay in the green area. Mine does. I don't run mine on gas if I can help it because I have to hold the button down and push the ignitor for about 2 or 3 minutes (clicking the ignitor every 5 sec or so) before it lights.

Grill, Have you purged the propane gas line of air. Once the supply of propane has been shut off at the bottle, the gas that remains in the line is replaced by air. Any appliance that operates on propane gas will probably not fire up immediately. One of the first things that we do after setting up our trailer is to purge the line by opening a burner on the stove. Keep a constant flame next to the burner propane reaches the burner and ignites. This should allow the lines to the refer and the hot water heater to ALMOST refill with propane. You may still have to fiddle with the ignition of the refer and/or the hot water heater. Be patient as the supply of propane needs to travel the rest of the distance to these appliances.

I hope this is a solution to your problem.

Hal

[RockyMtnRay]

[quote author=grill-n-go link=board=2;threadid=2081;start=msg14592#msg14592 date=1089074235]
I tried to run my frig on gas this weekend for the first time, without success.

Is the needle suppose to stay in the green area? Mine goes to green will I am holding the gas button and pushing the striker repeatedly. Once I release everything it slowly drifts back to the white area.

Is this normal?

Thanks,
[/quote]

No it's not normal for the needle to drift out of the green once the refrigerator burner lights. The needle is getting its signal from a device called a thermocouple that sits in the refrigerator's pilot light flame. As long as a pilot light flame is present the needle will stay in the green. A needle in the white is indicating that the pilot light (or main burner flame) is not being detected (flame went out or bad thermocouple). Since you can achieve a "green needle" with the button pushed, I would conclude the thermocouple is likely working properly. But the fact that needle goes back to the white when you release the gas button is telling me that the circuit in the refrigerator which detects the pilot flame via the thermocouple has gone bad (the button on the front panel overrides this circuit to allow gas flow without a pilot flame). The solution for this is to simply have the refrigerator's control circuit board replaced.

If I'm correctly reading your signature line, you have an '03 model TM. If this is the case, your refrigerator (including the bad circuit board) should still be covered under warranty for parts and labor. You need to take your TM to any RV dealer/repair center (doesn't have to be a TM dealer) who can service your brand of refrigerator...whether it be a Dometic or Norcold. Check the documentation you got with your trailer or the refrigerator manufacturer's website for a list of service locations.

[RockyMtnRay]

[quote author=Hal link=board=2;threadid=2081;start=msg14595#msg14595 date=1089086324]
Grill, Have you purged the propane gas line of air. Once the supply of propane has been shut off at the bottle, the gas that remains in the line is replaced by air. Any appliance that operates on propane gas will probably not fire up immediately. One of the first things that we do after setting up our trailer is to purge the line by opening a burner on the stove. Keep a constant flame next to the burner propane reaches the burner and ignites. This should allow the lines to the refer and the hot water heater to ALMOST refill with propane. You may still have to fiddle with the ignition of the refer and/or the hot water heater. Be patient as the supply of propane needs to travel the rest of the distance to these appliances.

I hope this is a solution to your problem.

Hal
[/quote]

Amplifying and endorsing Hal's suggestions. If you get under your trailer you will see that the gas line to the water heater is furthest from the propane tank, the refrigerator is next furthest, and the stove is 3rd from the end. As Hal notes, after non-use and particularly if air enters the line due to a tank change, the line to each appliance has to be refilled with fresh propane gas.

Hal's guidance is sound...since the stove is near the end of the line and is easiest to light, you should first get one stove burner to light off...that will purge most of the under-floor gas line from the tanks. The second easiest appliance to light (on the newer TMs anyway) is the water heater...but the bathroom does have be to erected first. Once the water heater starts (it may take two tries with the automatic ignition system), then and only then should starting the refer on gas be attempted. Because there is now only a couple of feet of line into the refer to be purged, I find I can consistently get the refer to start on gas within 10 to 15 seconds...perhaps a half dozen pushes of the push-button (piezo igniter) switch. If you don't follow this exact sequence, then yes, it can take as long as 2 to 3 minutes of button pushing to get the refrigerator to start and multiple ignition tries to even get the water heater to start.

In summary:

• Get at least one burner on the stove to light. This is the key to all following steps
• Then start the water heater. This is key to a quick start of the refrigerator
• Then start the refrigerator

[grill-n-go]

Thanks for all your suggestions. I should have mentioned that I tried running the frig after 2 days of having (gas) hot water and the oven pilot light on. I'm going to try 1 more time in my driveway. If that does'nt work I'm takin it to a dealer while my warranty is still valid. I only tried the igniter for 30 seconds and then waited 5 min. I'll try a little longer.

[grill-n-go]

Finally got over to the Norcold Service Shop. It seems that the thermocouple which is designed to keep the gas flowing once it gets hot, was not properly connected to the button on top of the refrigerator which keep the gas flowing (interruptor??). All they did was tighten it 1-1/2 turns. Apparently they've gotten a few that have this problem. They suspect that the factory workers are afraid to tighten them too much because they are easy to break.

When they were done with the work, they asked if I wanted to drive it home lit???!!! Does anyone drive like this?! I've always (all of 1 year) used battery while driving.

[YWORRYDOG]

The trailer that we just sold did not have a DC setting. We used it on gas while traveling all the time. I plan on useing the TM on DC, but could see that we may use the gas it it is extreamly hot.

[BobWilson]

Regarding driving with the propane on:

1. If you are driving then the the TM is closed. This is rather inconvenient if you need to make a change of the setting or to turn it off. But the refrigerator vents are going to be blocked which is not a good thing for cooling the system.

2. The DC mode is there for the purpose of traveling and you should turn on the refrig fan to assist in the cooling.

3. If you should go into a gas station with propane appliance running, this could be a dangerous situation if there are gasoline fumes around. With the right fuel to air mixture and the flame of the appliance there could be a disasterous situation.

4. Best to travel with the propane off. If you can't drive with the DC mode on because it is going to drain the battery, consider using a separate cooler in the tow vehicle until you get to the campsite. The problem of using the refrig on DC is that it draws about 9 amps of current. If you have to park for a long time even overnight at a motel before reaching your destination this would be too big of a load on the TM battery. A disadavantage to the fold down trailer is that you have to open it up just to turn the refrigerator controls. We use the separate travel cooler then transfer the food when we get there.

[Caver]

Over the Labor Day weekend I had cooled down the frig for a day on AC and then switched to DC for the trip to the campsite. When I arrived after a six hour trip I had used 12 AH from the two batteries as measured with the Bogart Trimetric meter. Even though I have 180 watts of solar panels I believe most of the 10+ amps used by the frig and fan were provided by the TV alternator. I ended up using only about 20 AH/day and each day the solar panels fully charged the batteries thanks to mostly clear skies. I even left one of the outside lights on all night. I could have done the four days on battery alone but it would have discharged the batteries to about 50%. It's amazing to be in your third or fourth day of a boondock trip and seeing the flashing light indicating that the batteries are at 100%.

We were in the mountains in WV camped with a lot of friends who were mostly using tents. Everyone was impressed how cool the TM was during the day when it would have been too hot to be in a tent, the TM was very comfortable.


If you are going to rely on the batteries for a few days of boondocking then you are not going to arrive at the campsite with 100% battery capacity if you run the frig on DC while traveling.