The boiler in the large fridge is way to small. Never had these issues on the small fridges in the past. We have to watch the door time due to the slow recovery. Dometic should step up and replace them with larger boilers.
Refrigerator Question
- Thread starter musicman
- Start date
The boiler in the large fridge is way to small. Never had these issues on the small fridges in the past. We have to watch the door time due to the slow recovery. Dometic should step up and replace them with larger boilers.
jimtoo
Moderator
Hi Gary,
Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum and hopefully to the family. We have a great bunch of people here with lots of information and all willing to share their knowledge if needed.
We hope your research leads you to a Heartland dealer and the family...as you can see we don't hide anything on the forum... you can see all the bad and a little bit of the good... all the good never gets posted. And if all the good was posted we would have to move the forum to a huge system to remember all the good things about a Heartland unit.
We also have an owners club, with good benefits. And RALLIES!!!!! We do have area Heartland rallies and also a yearly national rally.
The factory does monitor the forum and helps out with answers to problems and takes some of our suggestions for improving the units.
Also,,, I have heard of a couple of people that did put a residential type fridge in... but they were full timing and staying in one place for several months.
If you have questions about a unit, just ask. Enjoy the forum.
Jim M
Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum and hopefully to the family. We have a great bunch of people here with lots of information and all willing to share their knowledge if needed.
We hope your research leads you to a Heartland dealer and the family...as you can see we don't hide anything on the forum... you can see all the bad and a little bit of the good... all the good never gets posted. And if all the good was posted we would have to move the forum to a huge system to remember all the good things about a Heartland unit.
We also have an owners club, with good benefits. And RALLIES!!!!! We do have area Heartland rallies and also a yearly national rally.
The factory does monitor the forum and helps out with answers to problems and takes some of our suggestions for improving the units.
Also,,, I have heard of a couple of people that did put a residential type fridge in... but they were full timing and staying in one place for several months.
If you have questions about a unit, just ask. Enjoy the forum.
Jim M
GaryL, here is a good post. We have the Dometic four door refer. It is set on no.4. It maintains 34* in the refer compartment unless we have it open a lot. But always cools back down. the freezer is 0. So far so good.
I did however, install an extra baffle near the upper vent. I did this when the unit was new so I don't know if it helped or not. Just a precaution.
I am not aware of what size "boiler" dometic uses, but I doubt it is the same in all units. Might be, but I doubt it.
I did however, install an extra baffle near the upper vent. I did this when the unit was new so I don't know if it helped or not. Just a precaution.
I am not aware of what size "boiler" dometic uses, but I doubt it is the same in all units. Might be, but I doubt it.
The quality led me towards Heartland and being able to read about problems and the company's backing of them makes them seem the way to go. As for having to add baffles yourself and reading that this problem has been occurring for some time now, one would think that engineering or Dometic or someone in between the two, before it gets to the end user, would have sorted this problem through and made it so the customer didn't have to make the fix.
This doesn't diminish my outlook on Heartland one bit though. I've looked into their units and have liked what I have seen in comparison to other manufacturers. Still have time to go before I make a purchase though.
Thanks.
This doesn't diminish my outlook on Heartland one bit though. I've looked into their units and have liked what I have seen in comparison to other manufacturers. Still have time to go before I make a purchase though.
Thanks.
I guess these were made to sell in the north...cause they da%#$ sure don't work in the south in the hot temps. Steve Dagro
NO & NO!! Put the baffle and hope for the best. Where did you buy your Bighorn? What part of MS are you??
I have read through the entire thread concerning the Dometic refers and the need to install baffles and fans. My refer just died during a cold snap in Colorado (opposite of the issues of excessive heat for our southern RVers. We own a 2008 Heartland Bighorn 3600RL with the refer in the slide. We have our certifed mobile RV repair techs ordering an entire new cooling unit for the refer and the tech was curious about the baffles since it should be a normal part of the Dometic installation of the fridge. Does Heartland now pay for the replacement of a cooling unit and the installation of the baffles since this was a recognized design flaw? I assume I should contact Heartland directly. They have been extremely helpful in past issues withe the Bighorn. By the way, I have been a member of the Heartland owners club since 2008, but have not posted since the threads usually address my problems or issues. Love my Heartland Bighorn.
I doubt they will pay for cooling unit. Hope they do though. Not sure if you have been following my post but I have had problems since day one, which was April 22, 2010. Have considered a residential refer but figured I would wait and keep bugging Heartland/Dometic til they figure it out. Since this purchase seems like a long term one, I may look into a residential unit once the warranty is out. Good luck. Steve A. Dagro
I wil admit I did not read this entire thread so if this is a repeat I apologize. We run our refrig on propane only when the weather is warm and find it stays cooled that way. When we tried electricity the temps went right up. I cooler weather we just have it turned to automatic but once the weather warms up we switch to propane.
Had the same problem and was due to doors not sealing properly.
Rickhansen
Well-known member
Try checking your 110V plug behind the refrigerator. You access it through the outside vent. Your fridge may be unplugged or the outlet without 110V power. You wouldn't know otherwise from inside, as everything else operates on 12VDC.
I am trying to bypass the thermostat that controls the rear fan with a switch that I can control and are doing something wrong. I have disconnected the wires from the thermostat. I ran 2 lengths of 14 ga wire to the lower vent and attached one end to the disco wires from the thermostat and the other end to a switch. However, when I flip the switch the fan does not turn on. As of 2 weeks ago I know the fan was good as it ran the last time I used the trailer. I checked the fuse and it was good. Any ideas as to what I am doing wrong. I have attached a couple of pic of the thermostat before I disconnected the wires and of the switch.
Last edited:
Ray LeTourneau
Senior Member - Past Moderator
Hard to tell from the pictures but if you're trying to bypass the thermoswitch, there shouldn't be anything wired to it. You need 12 volts from a source, to the switch, then from the switch to the fan. The other wire from the fan to ground. Make sure the source is fused.
If you want to leave the t'switch in the equation, the ambient temperature just may not be warm enough to trip while your testing.
If you want to leave the t'switch in the equation, the ambient temperature just may not be warm enough to trip while your testing.
DougAndJudy
Well-known member
I used a 3-way spade connector (one female, two male) on each thermostat terminal. I connected the switch wires to one of the resulting male terminals and the original thermostat wires to the other on each side of the thermostat. The thermostat still works as usual, but I can use the switch when I need constant air flow. I got the 3-way spade connectors at a NAPA auto parts store.
Thanks Ray, I am trying to bypass the theroswitch. I included the pic with the wires connected to it to make sure that I was disconnecting the correct thing. I connected the wires I ran from the wires I took off of the thermoswitch to the new switch. Taking the thermoswitch out of the loop. I even made a small jumper wire and just connected the 2 wires off the thermoswitch together.
Now I was not hooked up to shore power and running off of the coach battery that had been sitting for a few weeks. Might this have had something to do with it?
