Residential Refrigerators

acro2eaa · Dec 30, 2016

Bad idea. My 2017 Cyclone I took delivery of still does not have a working refrigerator. Apparently, after 8 weeks of troubleshooting, Heartland has agreed it doesn't work. Now i'm in week 3 of waiting on a replacement. Watching all the other RV forums, apparently there are lots of issues with residential refrigerators in RV trailers. Everything from inadequate inventors, to the Refrigerators not holding up to traveling on highways, to inadequate ventilation. Conversely, the Dometic RV refrigerator in my previous fifth wheel was still working when i retired that unit earlier this year.

Sam
2017 Cyclone 3611

danemayer · Dec 30, 2016

Hi Sam,

Since the introduction of the residential refrigerators in Heartland products a few years ago, there have been a few problems that have been addressed.

Early on, Frigidaire changed compressors, the new compressor drawing more current at startup. The inverters were reprogrammed to fix that.

Early on, Heartland was using brackets mounted to the top of the refrigerator cabinet to hold the doors closed during transit. On a few units the screws punctured freon lines. The doors are now held with a different device.

Heartland also had a problem on early units with retention mechanisms that were not strong enough which allowed movement of the refrigerator. The retainers were redesigned.

All three of these startup problems have been corrected for a long while.

A fourth problem is the water feed line to the ice maker. In some cases, when the refrigerator was installed, the line was pinched, causing water leakage. I think Heartland has recently changed the routing and added a retainer to avoid this.

In general, residential refrigerators have worked pretty well and most people like them. Unfortunately, if you're one of the people who experiences a failure, it may take a while before your trust is recovered.

MCTalley · Dec 30, 2016

Aside from the pinched, leaking water line (we just cut off the water and use ice cube trays), our residential refrigerator experience has been nothing but good. That's with more than a year's full-time travel - over 20,000 miles so far.

For20hunter · Dec 30, 2016

We have had our residential refrigerator for more than 2 years and absolutely LOVE it!!

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boatto5er · Dec 30, 2016

I installed mine a little over a year ago. Will never go back to the alcohol absorption type.

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Jesstruckn/Jesstalkn · Dec 30, 2016

Same here !!!!
Other then the water line leak "We love our Residential fridge" cools perfectly all the time, lots of room, water and ice maker, the 1000 watt invertor works perfectly.
Having ice on hand when ever we need it is very nice.

Very very happy with it...

Rhyph · Dec 31, 2016

I never, ever want one of those RV gas absorption refrigerators in any of my coaches again. I can unfortunately count on my hands and toes the number I've seen in person having burnt up a rig.

I will go residential from now on, and we're on our second coach with one. Our first was early, had the retention and movement issues, but that was fixed well enough, along with the crushed water line because I did it myself.

We decided to shut off and never use the water line again for our newest, because it is stupid long and routes through the entire living room slide out. I don't want to take any chances with it. Have seen a few too many recent posts about destroyed slide-out floors due to leaks from the ice-maker water line lately.

Nuclearcowboy · Dec 31, 2016

danemayer said:
Hi Sam,

Since the introduction of the residential refrigerators in Heartland products a few years ago, there have been a few problems that have been addressed.

Early on, Frigidaire changed compressors, the new compressor drawing more current at startup. The inverters were reprogrammed to fix that.

Early on, Heartland was using brackets mounted to the top of the refrigerator cabinet to hold the doors closed during transit. On a few units the screws punctured freon lines. The doors are now held with a different device.

Heartland also had a problem on early units with retention mechanisms that were not strong enough which allowed movement of the refrigerator. The retainers were redesigned.

All three of these startup problems have been corrected for a long while.

A fourth problem is the water feed line to the ice maker. In some cases, when the refrigerator was installed, the line was pinched, causing water leakage. I think Heartland has recently changed the routing and added a retainer to avoid this.

In general, residential refrigerators have worked pretty well and most people like them. Unfortunately, if you're one of the people who experiences a failure, it may take a while before your trust is recovered.

Unfortunately, the water line issue still exists. I have a brand new BH 3970RD and the line to the fridge was pinched/crimped. Luckily, no leakage occurred but I had to cut/splice and re-route the line. I plan on replacing the whole line with stainless braided line in spring. I wish Heartland would spend the extra $15 bucks to put a better supply line to these units.

Nabo · Dec 31, 2016

We also have the residential refrig and love it. As for the water line/ice maker, we just don't use it after seeing all the problems that the 2013-2014 models had (ours in a 2015 model made in early 2014) so we just buy bag ice every so often and pour it into the ice dispenser. That way I still have ice from the refrig. I know it's kind of stupid but it works for us. Our inverter was one that was caught up in the programming issue so we just had the dealer install a larger watt one and have never had a failure during travel since then. We have been living in our Landmark for over 2 years because of working out of state.

acro2eaa · Jan 2, 2017

Well, Apparently there is a new problem as I've read of several more issues identical to mine. Hisense top portion not working after a few hours. It may be awhile apparently before i'll have a chance to get any trust back because it has been at the dealer coming up on 10 weeks on this refrigerator problem. Seems its been determined as bad but now because of it's oddball size, they can't find a replacement that will fit in the tight space. My old Dometic in my 1995 Avion worked as good on the day I retired that trailer last year as it did when it was brand new. My old Avion trailer never spent a day in the shop having warranty work in 21 years of use -(some things did wear out after many years and needed work). My 2017 Cyclone has been at the dealer way longer than it has been with me with no relief in site. Not much to stand on since technically Heartland doesn't warranty the frig anyway. Or the manufacturer technically since it's not used as intended. I sure hope Heartland doesn't abandon me on this.

Sam

danemayer said:
Hi Sam,

Since the introduction of the residential refrigerators in Heartland products a few years ago, there have been a few problems that have been addressed.

Early on, Frigidaire changed compressors, the new compressor drawing more current at startup. The inverters were reprogrammed to fix that.

Early on, Heartland was using brackets mounted to the top of the refrigerator cabinet to hold the doors closed during transit. On a few units the screws punctured freon lines. The doors are now held with a different device.

Heartland also had a problem on early units with retention mechanisms that were not strong enough which allowed movement of the refrigerator. The retainers were redesigned.

All three of these startup problems have been corrected for a long while.

A fourth problem is the water feed line to the ice maker. In some cases, when the refrigerator was installed, the line was pinched, causing water leakage. I think Heartland has recently changed the routing and added a retainer to avoid this.

In general, residential refrigerators have worked pretty well and most people like them. Unfortunately, if you're one of the people who experiences a failure, it may take a while before your trust is recovered.

cookie · Jan 3, 2017

Have you been in contact with Heartland directly?
10 weeks in the shop would not make me a happy camper. Looking for a refrigerator that fits?
Please call Heartland Customer Service and explain the situation.
877-262-8032 / 574-262-8030

Peace
Dave

sjandbj · Jan 3, 2017

I have had just the opposite results with the Norcold unit that my unit came with. After 13 months the lines cracked and the unit would not cool. I replaced it with a residential unit myself. I have had one problem with the refrigerator, a fan motor went bad so the cold air was not getting to the refrigerator side but after replacing the motor it has been wonderful to use. We have put 5000 miles on since the change and the only complaint I have is that we had not learn how to load it to keep things from moving all over the place. There is so much more room in the new unit. As far as the water line goes I have not hooked it up yet and may not. Since we do not use the rig all the time the water that gets left in the refrigerator might go bad. and there is not easy way to drain the the water tank. I won't go back to the old propane unit ever.

osims · Jan 3, 2017

We had to replace our residential refrigerator when our Bighorn was new, Lowes carries Samsung counter depth refrigerators and it fit perfectly and Heartland worked with us to get it taken care of.

acro2eaa · Jan 3, 2017

Yes, I have been in contact with Heartland. It's hard to know what ground truth is. There is always a reason why it's not out of the shop. Between Heartland people, and dealer people, unless I was following them around, I never know what is actually happening. I've heard the dealer say Heartland won't get involved until they have explored every troubleshooting step five times over, then Heartland agrees there is something wrong, then they want to give the frig manufacturer multiple chances to get involved in repairing it. But manufacturer apparently isn't excited about getting involved in repairing their household units installed in RV's And then they (don't really know who "they" is but They can't find a suitable replacement and on and on and on.

I will say they have been very pleasant on the phone, and talk good stories. But at some point being nice and talking a good story is not sufficient.

Sam

cookie said:
Have you been in contact with Heartland directly?
10 weeks in the shop would not make me a happy camper. Looking for a refrigerator that fits?
Please call Heartland Customer Service and explain the situation.
877-262-8032 / 574-262-8030

Peace
Dave

wdk450 · Jan 3, 2017

Regarding all of the icemaker water line issues, I had the same repeatedly leaking water line issues with the icemaker in my Dometic ammonia adsorption RV refrigerator equipped with an icemaker. I shut down the icemaker water line and bought a portable tabletop ice maker from Walmart for about $100. It has a water reservoir, and repeatedly makes a small load of round icecubes about every 12 minutes until it senses the ice container is full.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Igloo-Portable-Countertop-Ice-Maker/31136425

Residential Refrigerators

acro2eaa

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danemayer

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MCTalley

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For20hunter

Pacific Region Directors-Retired

boatto5er

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Jesstruckn/Jesstalkn

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Rhyph

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Nuclearcowboy

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Nabo

Southeast Region Director-Retired

acro2eaa

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cookie

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sjandbj

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osims

bsims

acro2eaa

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wdk450

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