Exploding RV Refrigerators Spark A War Among Plaintiff Lawyers

Has anyone replaced their refers because of this?

 

Okay, first of all, yes there have been fires, but they are a rarity. There have been lawsuits, but they are a rarity. Both Dometic and Norcold have had suits and those suits were settled. Dealers who sold the units have been sued and those suits have been settled (at least the ones I know of). Equipment has also been modified.


These units do not explode! They catch fire when the cooling coil cracks and hydrogen that is inside the coil reaches the burner tube. Most often in a coil breach the hydrogen simply goes up and out the upper vent. Surely some of you in this forum have had a cooling coil leak, but I have a hunch it did not explode.


If you have one of the refrigerators on recall, which you can ascertain by going to the appropriate manufacturer's site, you can check to see if your fridge in on the recall list. No all models are and don't need to be, but if yours is on the recall list, by all means have the recall kit installed. You can not do it. You have to have someone like me do it, but it costs you nothing!


I am not aware of single lawsuit in a fridge that has occurred after a recall kit has been installed. I personally have installed a hundred or more and my dealers have most likely installed better than a thousand.


Remember what you are reading here is an attorney trying to make a great deal of money by making people afraid.


Part of the problem here was engineering trying to come up with a way to make the refrigerator cool down faster by increasing heat at the burner tube. The cooling coil was not able to handle the added heat and ruptured in what I have been told by the manufacturer in training classes.


I am not trying to defend bad engineering, but I have a Norcold refrigerator and have no intention of throwing it out. Ruptured cooling coils have been around for decades and I have a hunch no one in this forum who RVs has ever seen a refrigerator catch fire in person. I have seen one and am aware of two.


One option is to purchase one of the new refrigerators manufactured by Atwood as they use helium in the cooling coil instead of hydrogen. Atwood is of course now owned by Dometic, perhaps as a way to circumvent potential liabilities. From what I have been told, the cool down time is greater with the Atwood, but I have no experience with this first hand.


You will also note the industry is rapidly moving toward residential model refrigerators in many units, which is a perfect alternative for the vast majority of RV owners as it requires only a small inverter while traveling and then shoreline power at the campground.


Those are my thoughts regarding the issue of "exploding refrigerators".


Now as to fires, according to the folks who investigate RV fires, from what I have been told the single greatest cause of RV fires is the 12-volt system, but I do not know this first hand so it is something said to me by a fire investigator often referred on the Internet whom I know personally.


Now here is a real issue. Many of you, like my wife and I, travel in fifth wheels with the escape window in the bedroom. Can you and your family exit that window in the event of a fire? Have you even tried to work that escape window so you know how it opens? Finally, every RV of every type needs working propane leak, smoke, and CO detector, no exceptions.


End of rant!!!


Steve


Steve

 

I would suggest researching this issue carefully. Much of what is written here is wildly inaccurate and some of it is technically incorrect.


Steve

 

I have checked mine...I don't have those models under the recall.

 

What can you do?


Carry all of your refrigerables in a coleman cooler, and use a sony bookshelf reefer instead?



I always thought that RV refrigerators were not effective anyway - for every second they are open, it takes twenty minutes for them to re-cool

 

Mine's in storage so can't be checked until spring, but if you want to check yours, here is the website that has all the information regarding the recall:
Norcold Recall

 

The recall appears to be on Norcold reefers through 2010, mostly 1200 series. While ours is a 2014 #1210 model, the serial number is not among that recall list (so far).

When we were looking at new campers, including many out of our price range ($70K and way up) what I saw mostly on the ones we went through were mostly the 1200 series of 4 door Norcold fridges vs a couple years ago when we were wandering shows they seemed to be almost all Dometic. I suspicion that Norcold has made their unit very economical for manufacturers to use as the Dometic line has gotten very expensive although that 1210 sure ain't cheap at 3800+ bucks if you, an individual, need to replace it.

I agree with Steve in his assessment of that article. I too have seen more then a few failed cooling units where the weld fails though mostly on Dometics. There were no fires, only a greenish powder and stain around the crack. The fridge just quit working. We had one of the Dometic recall units on a TT a few years ago - and the fix was a ridiculous sheet metal shield - which if left as installed, wouldn't allow the reefer to operate on gas so had to be modified to allow more combustion air to the pilot. Yes, it was installed correctly as the tech left the instruction sheet so I was able to check.

 

Please do not modify the Dometic recall kit. I have installed literally dozens, if not hundreds and have never had a single problem with the operation on gas. If there is a problem, it is with the gas system, not due to shield. The shield is only designed to contain a fire until the thermocouple in the recall kit shuts the system down.


Steve

 

Steve - please re-read my post. THAT TT IS LONG GONE. The mod needed to be worked on to keep the pilot going on gas. There was nothing wrong with the gas system as even before I opened up an small air admittance hole it was looked at by the installing tech, adjusted according to him and a new pilot TC installed.