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quick update to say THANKS again for the model number info. I just installed the DMC4101 replacing the Norcold N8X. I have had it running only 1.5 days, so far so good. 👍
I have 3 100 watt solar panels and use 2 - 6 volt Costco golf cart batteries and I have never ran out of power. The RV alternator does a great job , I have never had to use the generator. I have an 12v EverChill 10 cu ft fridge. Love it best upgrade ever.
That just shows how we are all different in what we want in our campers. We mostly boondocks and have solar but solar does not work well enough if you are sitting in heavy fog for a week, I never want to get rid of being able to use propane for our fridge, I also love having an old fashioned oven. I hate running a generator so we just use our microwave as storage.
Thank you for doing this video, it’s very helpful. Our 2nd Dometic absorption fridge just died. Blessedly, no one was in there at the time because when I opened the trailer it was FULL of ammonia fumes.☠️ Time to upgrade to a 12 volt.
just purchased 2022 ORV 24TRX and had it delivered to Iowa. Fridge worked for 2 days. Had to purchase $1800 12v fridge Dometic since no local RV dealers would deal with warranty work. Norcold sucks. Could not get factory on the phone being on hold over 5 hrs over 2 days and gave up. Luckly the Dometic slide direct in no problem. Capped off the LP line and wired the 12v in. Luv the new fridge.
Ohh thats a bummer to hear! Warranty stuff is just no fun... I think someone said ORV is finally going to a 12 volt fridge option for the 2023 models...but not sure if thats true. Glad your all hooked up now and enjoy the ORV!
Hi Chris and Aaron! Thank you very much for coverage of this awesome upgrade! We fall into that category of only going out for 2 weeks at a time, currently. So, we will keep our propane absorption fridge. But, if it dies, I would jump all over this option! And when I retire and we start doing 1-2 month trips, all over this option too! Safe travels!!
I really appreciate the research you’ve done, electricity usage, propane usage and more. We’re weekenders or two week trip folks for now, so absorption and electric works for us. But you’ve provided invaluable information for when we eventually go full time! (Going back to your other videos as well) Thanks!
I guess I will have to be about the only naysayer here. I've been RVing regularly since 1986 and have gone through quite a few refrigerators and the 12 volts certainly now make a good option. First, one plus I did not hear about the 12 volt compressor was the fact that propane RV refrigerators can be quite finicky when you go up in altitude (which we do a lot of mountain camping). I also agree that propane refrigerators are simply one more thing to worry about, but then you replace this worry with the electrical worry, so I call this one a draw. I do have to take issue though with propane usage, we often camp in warmer western state climates in the summer and we average about 2-3 gallons over a 3 week trip, which IMHO is not bad (it also does NOT run constantly with our recent models). We also camp in areas where our solar panels are not all that effective and the average 12 volt 10 cubic foot refrigerator uses on average 8 amps dc (counting off time). This can add up to a lot, especially when I note that we've run furnaces in very cold climates and had them kill batteries in one night at an 8 amp draw. I will also note that these DC compressor refrigerators cost less to build but the mark up is higher, which is why many RV manufacturers are now adding these, but only with two 12 volt lead acid batteries and 200 watts of solar which during an average summer day does not provide much more power than just running the refrigerator. In winter dry camping you simply will need to run a gas generator often to keep up. Do not get me wrong, I think they have their place, but IMO and in the opinion of the RV tech I've been using for some time, these are not best for many true boon-docking RVers unless you have a really good litium battery pack and good sun much of the day (such as winter camping in the Arizona desert)
I have a 34 year old Dometic absorption that still surprises me with the temperatures -5F to 5F freezer temperatures/ 35F to 42F fridge. But the 12V compressor fridge is my dream fridge.
My dometic runs 300 watts for an hour, off for 15 mins, then 300 watts for an hour. its horrible. takes twice the power as my residential fridge twice its size with an ice maker.
@@enigma9789 I have a 390W panel up top right now but I am looking to add another 510W panel. I may remove the 390W and put two 510W panels up top. I have 800 AH of AGM batteries and have room for another 600 AH of Group 31 AGM batteries. Once I have the two panels up top and the 1400 AH of batteries I will probably upgrade to the 12v fridge. I am not full-time in the rig yet, but I am looking to move to full-time within the next year.
@@magician2020 Honestly the price of lithium batteries has gotten very low. Its almost time to switch. My camper runs on a solar shed, it has 200ah at 48v of lithium iron phosphate (8 batteries) 1200 watts of solar on the shed roof and 4000 watts on a ground mount. I still run the fridge on propane overnight because it wont handle the AC and fridge. (Im in Texas, its hot at night)
@@enigma9789 that is still pretty impressive to run the AC on battery charged by solar. I have two roof ACs but I have to run the generator for AC. I’m in Phoenix and just picked up a Hessaire Evaporative Cooler that uses 75 watts. I think a second one in the back of the rig for a total of 150 watts will cool off my rig.
We're FTers who love to boondock almost all the time, so have installed a serious solar/battery system. Right now, we live with an old, 8cf Dometic absorption fridge upgraded with an Amish cooling unit. It works great, even in the 90-degree range, (those Amish make good stuff) but consumes about $1 to $1.50 a day in propane depending on the ambient temp. Plus, there's the expense and time needed to go get the propane - which if you're 100 miles from nowhere at the time, is a major inconvenience, and no small expense with an 8mpg motorhome. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too often.
Our motorhome has 2 solar/battery systems. We have a 48v, 16.3 kwh LiFePo-4 battery with 4,400 watts of solar on the roof to charge it. This provides 24/7 heating and cooling using our mini split heat pump, as well as all our other 110v AC electrical needs. We can also run a 14.5k rooftop A/C during the day while still being able to charge our batteries. But we plan on upgrading to a 12v fridge powered by a 7.1 kwh (560ah) LiFePo-4 12v battery charged by a 620-watt liftable array on the side of our MH. Right now, we use very little of our 12v system's capacity, so we have 12v power to spare. My question is, what is the most efficient and durable 12v, 10cf fridge available, and how long would it take to payback the upgrade? If we went with a $1,300, 10cf Recpro, we're looking at a 3 yr+ break even, assuming we use about $400/yr in propane. But if we choose an $1,100, 10.7cf Contoure that Camping World sells, we're only looking at a 2yr, 9mo. break even. The question is, not only which is more efficient, but which fridge will last longer? I can't envision propane getting any cheaper in the next few years, so it looks like a DC fridge is in my future, but I don't want to discard my perfectly good propane fridge just yet. I'm planning on just waiting till it dies before I make the leap. What do you think?
I think what fridge people should go with highly depends on the climates they'll be using their trailer or RV in. Cool dry climates are really where absorption fridges excel. Oh, and whether or not they'll be plugged into shore power is pretty important too.
I don’t think climate matters anymore. All that matters is if you want to run off electricity or gas. Absorption fridges use an insane amount of electrical power to run in electric only mode.
We just upgraded our Airstream to a larger model with a 12v fridge. I was hesitant to switch from absorption to compression because of the battery usage. Like Aaron mentioned about stock systems, our new trailer came with 200Ah lithium with 270 watts of solar. Well, all the worries were not needed because that electrical system is more than sufficient to run the fridge 24/7. We even leave it on in the driveway between trips. Sometimes we won’t turn the freezer on if we’re not bringing frozen foods and this really helps lower power usage. Agree completely that the best parts are way more useable space in the fridge, more consistent temperatures and when it gets hot out it keeps everything cold. With the absorption fridge when it got hot it didn’t keep contents at 38 degrees, danger zone!!! 12v works way better for weekend warriors also because those absorption fridges take so long to get cold, so we’d have to bring a separate ice cooler for travel time, and then you wait for the fridge to get cold at your destination, then you have to move your food from your cooler to the fridge. Then at the end of the trip same maneuver because we didn’t drive with propane on either. Way easier!
We routinely turn our absorption frig on the day before. Typically a good overnight will be enough for it to be at temp before we leave. If you put a two small size bags of ice in the freezer it cools down the rest of the frig faster. The day before works for us. We also have a ICECO portable frig, we put in the truck when traveling to have cold drinks, and snacks. Our 5ver came with 2 30 lb propane tanks, and we have never run out of propane between the frig, hot water heater, the heater, and using a gas grill. We also love that we have 4 gas burners and a oven. At night we can have heat on, and still not drain our two gel batteries. We like it more on the cold side, so the heat does not come on as often. We will sleep with are windows open down in the low 50's. We have no solar. We can boon-dock well over two weeks, and never run of propane. We usually don't even fill the tanks up for every trip because they last so long. Our routine is to turn on the (factory installed) generator in the mornings, for breakfast, hot water heater, dishes showering. Then we are pretty much out during the day. Then when we come back later afternoon, evenings we turn the generator back on for a few hours before we go to bed. It just works for us. We are not full time. We even occasionally run our generator on all night when we get caught with high night time temps. We don't want the expense of a solar system, or the extra weight that takes away from our cargo capacity
Had a flashback when you mentioned it coming out the door of the RV. Had a boat with a smaller household refrigerator in it when I bought it and it was old, ugly and not working great. I am sure it had been in there a long time. Went to take it out and found out some trim would have to removed from the boat. Of course after removing screws trim was not coming off so I pondered solution. Not wanting to remove and maybe ruin the trim I took out the compressor, laid down a blue tarp and took my Sawzall and cut it in half vertically. People at the marina had a good chuckle.
I bought one of those iceco 52 cool with a 12 volt compressor and it works great just a little help to you attach a 12 volt computer fan blowing on the compressor it really helps the compressor keep cool and last longer , we live in the west valley in Arizona so keeping cool is a hobby for me now lol
I realize that this post is a year old, but I'm new to your channel. We had a gas absorption fridge for many years and got used to it. We just bought a new 5th wheel that came with a 12-volt fridge. The big advantage is how cold it gets and that you can turn your propane off (which is recommended) and keep everything cold. The disadvantage is when we're boondocking, it burns battery since we can't run it on propane, or we have to run the generator.
I have a Furion 12v compressor refrigerator in my 5th wheel. Was doing good with two 100ah lithium and no solar but recently added 400 watts of solar which Ray Sokol (the RV electric wizard) says should power the refrigerator indefinitely.
The information provided was awesome! I am so glad you included the “wiring” section. I will be checking the wiring on the back of our Outdoor Rv fridge. What was the discount code again for the fridge….. I think I missed it. Lol. I am just teasing guys. You guys are great and love your videos!
Great video. I have a small 16ft BH RV with an absorption fridge. I spend lots of time on the hot Arizona desert and this style of fridge doesn't even come close to being workable. A year or two ago I looked for a small 12v compressor fridge that might fit but had no luck. I'm hoping that one of the two RV fridge manufacturers will make one in the near future as these have really caught on. Until then I've been using an Acopower portable compressor fridge. I don't even turn on my old fridge and use it for shelf space.
Same RV, 22FQS 2022... I have been on quite a few trips with the gas absorption unit. It does not perform very well at all. Anything over 90 degrees and it is useless. I am going to do this upgrade exactly. Thanks for the video.
Finally did this upgrade. Fantastic. I also blocked both vents with foil tape and some insulation as well. I let the RV get up to about 98° inside and out and the fridge held temperature. Very impressed.
Very good video. We live full time in a 2015 Northwood Nash 23D (sister company of Outdoors). We are considering upgrading to a 12v fridge. Our little 6 cubic feet fridge is starting to not stay as cold.
I replaced my refer with a 12 v. Everchill refer about a month ago and I love it. No regrets at all. I have 510 watts of solar and 300 amp hours of lithium batteries. More than enough to handle it.
That's our same Fridge 10Cubft Dometic. I have commented before; our previous TT had a 12V compressor 10.7Cubt Ft and we knew wanted the same in our new Grand Design 22mle So we waited the 2022 model came out with the 10Cubt ft Dometic fridge. Just like yours. Our 5th day owning TT an we got a ding on the door as well. I had forgotten a empty small plastic container on the dinette table and while towing it must of flew off and onto the door and DING lol Drives me crazy so we placed a magnet over it. Eventually I will try to take ding out; watching some YT DIY vids lol
@@IreneIronTravels LOLI No suction cup didn't work for me. I have it here at our home. This requires a little more science or technical ability and you guys are the ones to do it.. So I'll wait to learn from you LOL You see now you have another DIY vid .. Lol
We just brought home a new Grand Design Reflection. It came with a big 12 volt fridge and a 370 watt solar panel. How is your fridge working out for you? I'm adding another 370w panel and lithium batteries. I hope we don't have any issues with this refrigerator!
@@IreneIronTravels thank you for this video.. I apologize if I missed it.... Does your new 12v compressor fridge have a defrost cycle? If so..how many amps does it use? Thank you again
Great info. Has the same idea when we upgraded to lithium. We are weekend warriors so staying with the propane as we mostly camp in PacNW so no issues. Saving $ for lift kit on our class C!
Great video as I'm considering doing this to my RV same fridge. Thank you.... 2 other unrelated comments, being in Reno I love the Battle Born batteries you're running, and great shirt Rhymesayers kill it, huge Atmosphere fan.
Idk why I thought it would be as easy as unplugging the old, moving it out and plugging in the new. 😆. Shows what I know. You guys are too good! Congrats on the new 12 volt fridge.
🤣 thanks! If you did a true residential fridge (110v) you could just plug that into the outlet and cap off the propane. But, those do take a bit more power with having to run your inverter😊
Great upgrade, best plus for boondocking, planning 2 weeks in the wilderness and having to be conscious everyday of food supply lasting would be equivalent of heading out cross country on bald tires, constant anxiety. Big plus, not a pilot flame burning in RV. Safe Travels
I have an EverChill 12v refrigerator in my Flagstaff Microlight. All the positives that you state, but I had a cooling problem that I felt was due to no clearance between the cabinet wood trim and the refrigerator. I have a UA-cam video that explains my problem and my solution of add ventilation fans. What did you do on the exterior of your RV? Did you seal up the opening or does it still allow for ventilation?
Love your channel! You’re spot on in all my research. Going full time soon and brushing up. You guys have amazing content! Would love to see cold weather experiences in your new Alliance 🙌
Absorbtion fridges used to be fine and could do the job but the newest ones are junk and allow their temps to swing drastically. I upgraded my model year 2018 Norcold to a 12V compressor and added 400A of Lithium with 600 watts of solar. It was spendy but this setup is fantastic. The solar keeps up easily with the fridges daily use and if it's cloudy, the lithium can keep us going for 3 days without issue.
When I bought mine class c the first thing and then threw away that lousy refrigerator and install a 110 V refrigerator. I bought a Lowe’s on clearance for $300 10 cubic feet I love it
Have this in our 2022 Rockwood 2516s. 9 months old and it’s dying. The light flashes and it will barely crust over ice in the freezer. Have tried turning off and letting it reset. This is on shore power.
We just got this same fridge and there are three modes including a silent mode. Our trailer is just a single room so the fridge is in the same space as the fridge and I just do not hear it even if I don’t put it on silent mode.
You can definitely hear the fridge when it’s running, but it’s not too bad. Our bed is less than 10 ft away and we don’t notice it at night while sleeping. 👍
How much did the solar panels and lithium battery set up cost you? How do you charge your batteries in winter? P. S. A 20 lb propane tank refill cost about $18 and runs my fridge for 15 days. (@ 1.23 $/day) I run my fridge on propane 9 mos/year = 333$/year x 10 years = 3330 $. An e Volta set up is $ 25000 ....
We've always had a propane fridge, but our new AS (25 FC) will have a 12v. We never had an issue with the propane fridge, and it worked great boondocking. We do look forward to not worrying while traveling and will like having more room. We plan to have one 270ah Battleborn Gamechanger and 400 ah solar, but will add more if needed.
I love that the new Airstreams are coming with 12Volt now. I didn't talk about it in this video, but when I was van shopping one of the reason we bought the AS Interstate was because it had a 12volt and there wasn't two giant cut out vents in the side of the Sprinter van! Glad they aren't cutting up the trailers anymore! Thats a great electrical system for the fridge I think.. you're going to love it!
Our new Classic came with a 12v too. Love it compared to our 2020 Airstream that came with a propane model. Being able to leave it on while driving down the road is great.
So we have had this exact model for a few months. My question is do you monitor your temperature in the fridge at all?? We are finding when it goes into defrost mode which is about every 12 hours it gets up to like 36 in freezer and 47 in fridge. It drops back down to like -11 in freezer and around 33 in fridge
We did monitor the Fridge portion only for a few weeks to figure out which setting was best for us. Right now we have it on Performance level 2 and that keeps the fridge between low 30's and low 40's as it cycles. Didn't notice a big defrost cycle swing like you did. If we put it on Performance 3 it can get too cold and freeze veggies or eggs in the back.....
Nice video!! I have a truck camper with a Norcold absorbtion refrigerator and added an additional fan to improve performance. It works well enough when parked, but in high heat, driving down the road, the freezer will get up to 40F and refrigerator gets to 60F or higher. Does the DC compressor refrigerator suffer while driving down the road? Thanks!!
I drove over the road for 35 years and did 3.8 million miles and I had a fridge like this I paid $640 dollars for from kenrorth. Just like your home fridge either a freezer. Still have it.funs off of 12 volt. I retired in May 2020. Enjoy it
These newer 12v fridges seem much more efficient than my 7/8 yr old 12v fridges.. thanks.. If i had a lipo system like yours id definitely switch over.. gonna keep the propane for now
hi team : I have been enjoying my DMC4101 for about a month nonstop without issue, until today when the compressor/fans just sorta seemed to stop working for the freezer. It was about 26F in the freezer and very humid (94%) for a few hours. Most things on the top of the pile were very frosty and or soaked from the high humidity. (the fridge was holding temp at around 41F for many hours) I have two Govee thermostats (that measure every 10 minutes) that can send alerts in the fridge and freezer (from our misery days with the Norcold NX8 Absorption Freezer) which is how I happened to notice. I couldn't find any info anywhere online or in the manual from Dometic about this specific symptom, but simply turning off the power to the unit (by holding the start button for 3 seconds), letting it sit idle for a short bit, and turning it on caused the compressor and fan to kick in (at least on performance mode). I figured it was worth a shot and it seemed to work. Its almost at 0F again in the freezer in less than 1 hour and seems to be working normally again and the humidity is starting to go down. Not sure what would have happened to our frozen food if I didn't get the high temp alert from my thermostat in the freezer. Have you guys had your Freezer stop cooling/freezing? Just wanted to note it here as you guys have such a great video and resource about this specific unit. Thank you ! (and sorry for the long winded question, hoping it will help others)
Hello 👋 Hmmm, that does sound unusual and we have not had anything like that happen. We've been using the fridge for about 6 months now Fulltime and it's been great. The freezer does have an auto defrost cycle and I wonder if it had something to do with that?? I'll see if I can contact someone at Dometic for some insight.
Hey Matt, this is what I found out about your situation. It sounds like your fridge was doing a defrost cycle... maybe it was the first one you noticed? But see below feedback from Dometic : The defrost cycle is directly related to the compression run time and will likely vary between 8-12 hours. In cooler temperatures the compressor duty will be less so the time between defrost cycles will be longer and in warm weather the compressor duty cycle will be shorter (so more compressor run time) and the time between defrost cycles will be shorter. There is a defrost heater that turns on during the defrost cycle to help shorten the amount of time to defrost the refrigerator. The 26 °F in the freezer matches well with what temperature should be seen during a defrost cycle. If a user changes from performance mode to eco mode it will place a delay on the defrost cycle (running about half as many as it otherwise would); but by placing the refrigerator in eco mode it will also slightly raise the temperature in both refrigerator and freezer compartments. If the reoccurring defrost cycle is a nuisance, I would suggest trying eco mode and check the temps with the govee sensor to be sure its desirable/acceptable.
@@IreneIronTravels amazing ! thanks very much for this detailed description, this makes alot of sense. Maybe I missed it in the documentation, if so... I'm an idiot. 😆 I really appreciate you looking into this for me.
Hello - we have a Dometic refrigerator and are having problems as well. It's only 1 year old. This last trip our fridge went up to 50 and we had to throw a lot of food away as it wouldn't go down. When we got home, we started testing it. We have a thermometer in the freezer and refrigerator and it will show a fluctuation of up to 25 degrees in a 24 hour period. We realize that is air temperature so we put a bowl of water in there and we've been testing that with a food grade thermometer as well. It's been pretty accurate with the other thermometer in the fridge. We keep our motorhome in a storage yard and go over and see how it's doing once a day. Would you mind sharing what the fluctuation on your thermometer was?
For our 2017 Navion, ordered a Canadian mfg Nova Kool RFU6406D dual compressor 12 volt only so we won't have any problems in the hot Florida weather. Anticipate in Oct or Nov. These things are expensive with lead of 5+ months. I echo 100% on the 12 volt compressor. Reliability and repairability The BIG negative for 12v. Some major manufacturers consider a $1700 12v a throw away when it doesn't work...they're engineered NOT fully repairable. Essential due diligence. For example, the Norcold n611 terrible reliability and not fully repairable. In the early days of camping absorption only option. But now with solar and lithium 12 volts the only way to go.
I'd like to replace my RV refrigerator with a 12 volt compressor type but I have limited battery storage size. A 12 volt refrigerator needs a good battery bank. What I have found, in the summer, a gas absorbs ion refrigerator doesn't keep the refrigerator section col enough. Running on gas is less effective than running on 120 volts. That being said, I try to arrange my RV life to be in more moderate to cool environments so my refrigerator does better.
Hi guys! Great vid! Getting ready to pull the trigger on the same upgrade. Question … How is that fridge holding up after a year or so of full time use? I too live full time in my RV. This fridge got mixed reviews so I’m just curious. Looking forward to your response. Thanks! 😎
Hello and Thanks! We sold the trailer last summer but the fridge was great for over a year. We now have a new 5th wheel with a Norcold 20NDSS and the dometic worked better!
I would never plug that line inside the rv, take the other end of the line off and cap it there. At least if it develops a leak it’s outside the rv where the breeze can do it’s magic. Also that line being unsupported is a horrible idea, the road vibration will eventually work harden and crack it. Hence the reason I’d cap it OUTSIDE beneath the coroplast
good video thanks, thinking bout replacing mine but i did not know abt this model and the size upgrade in the 8cf space? will call dometic and check on everything? just wondering did u ck out norcold at all? has the dometic worked out till today or what 2cents can you provide?? thanks again 🤠
We sold this RV, but the dometic is running strong and we really liked it. A lot of people also use the Norcold and have seemed to like it. We have the new Norcold 19cu ft 12 volt in our new RV and it works good, but has way more condensation ( humidity) than our dometic. Could be the size difference, but it’s really ruining our vegetables in a few days….
Ahh yes, I forgot to add that part in as I did it month or so later while installing the Insty Connect Roof antenna that went down the roof fridge vent. So for the roof vent I put most of the pink insulation you see in this video from the walls of the cabinet and it fit nicely about 10 inches deep into the top rectangle hole on the roof. The wall vent I used a few layers of foam core radiant barrier amzn.to/3cepyJ3 to fill that part behind the fridge. Ill re check it in the colder months to see how its sealing up.
11:10, electrical units of measurement are kinda counterintuitive. Their relationship with time is exactly the opposite as, say, speed and distance. So Miles Per Hour = Amps, and Miles = Amp-Hours. So going 50 MPH for one hour moves you 50 miles, and drawing 50 amps for an hour consumes 50 Amp-Hours. So if your fridge used 50 amps overnight, it'd drain your 800 Amp-Hour battery bank in 16 hours all by itself.
Hey Paul 👋. What I meant was roughly 50 amps total overnight (10 hours ish) so 5 amps per hour. Just a rough guide for someone to gauge how much a fridge like this would run down a battery overnight. Hard to exactly test this while living in it and the temp does really effect it as well. The fridge draws around 100-150 watts when it’s running and cycles about 50% of the time.
@@IreneIronTravels Hello! I know what you meant and I'm not trying to be a jerk, but you still have it exactly backwards. Your refrigerator drew 5 amps all night long (10 hours) and used 50 amp-hours of electricity. What you're saying is "we drove 50 miles per hour all night (10 hours), and traveled 5 miles".
@@IreneIronTravels This is what I meant about electricity being counter-intuitive. For most things, the unit is capacity. A gallon of water. A mile of distance. You ADD time to get the rate - A sink does 2 gallons per minute, a car goes 50 miles per hour. With electricity, it's exactly the opposite. Time is part of the unit of capacity (amp-hours) and you remove time to get the rate (amps). So GPM, MPH, and amps are all rates. Gallons, Miles, and amp-hours are all capacities.
I have the same absorption fridge that you just replaced and it's been one of the more miserable ones I've owned. And speaking of power, that thing draws about 35 watts on DC when the exterior cooling fans are running. On even a warm day, for me, they run all day, continuously. They don't cycle. Doing the math compared to an 8'cu compressor fridge with its duty cycling that's nearly the same amount of power used in a typical day and I'm still burning gas. So yeah, I'm so looking forward to the day that I upgrade mine. Even the cheap chest style compressor fridge I had in my teardrop was so much less hassle than any absorber I've used and I miss it. Thanks for mentioning the measurements, that was helpful. I have the same door predicament as you and have been concerned about it.
$1800 for a DC fridge or $600 for a 10 to 14 cu.ft AC fridge that uses 1kWh/day with $1200 left to spend for an extra solar panel on the roof to power it. Either choice is better than propane IMO.
howdy Folks. Great info and really enjoy all your vids! We have an 2020 Timber Ridge OutdoorsRV, with a Norcold Absorption Refri. Our currrent model is N8XCL, the dimensions seem to be the same as the DMC4101. Any chance you know the model number of the Norcold unit you took out? Just wanna double check my measurements before ordering. Thanks and keep up the great content y'all !
Just wondering if you had any problem getting the left hinged Dometic fridge you are showing? On their website that model # is showing up as a right hinge only? Also wondering if there were features about the Dometic you preferred over the Norcold N10DC, which is also 10 CU ‘ & will fit in that same space.
No we didn’t have any issues getting the Lh, but it might be less common… the part number is 9600026947 I believe. The Norcold is probably very similar spec wise, but I’m not that familiar with it. I have heard from a couple people they are happy with the Norcold. I do think the Dometic looks nicer and more modern with the controls on the inside like a residential fridge instead of the clunky black controls on the front of the Norcold. We are more familiar with the Dometic brand as well but either beats a absorption style in our minds 😊
@@IreneIronTravels Thanks for your input. It’s helpful. We picked up our ORV (04/22) from Thompson’s, (Pendleton, OR). It came with the standard Norcold fridge. We are full timers now, and have been spending the summer in upper MI.. We are getting so much condensation and frost, & I am over it!😂. Your video helped solidify why we might need to change out to the compressor type. We may drop by Thompsons later this fall, they can do the install, should we decide to switch out. They currently have the Norcold compressor in stock. I have asked the parts manager about pricing out the Dometic fridge for us, as a comparison. Meanwhile, just gathering info from folks like you to help us decide…many thanks.😊
@@cschadwick we are leaving Virginia JC Refridgeration in Shipshewana, Indiana on Saturday. On Monday they are switching our Norcold 1200lrim to a 2 12v compressor cooling unit. I am soooo done w/ norcold and that bandaid recall fix they did. My electric bill is outrageous. And I won't have to sleep wt a nostril open waiting for a fire.
This is probably better for full-timers who have solar. It would cost a lot more to add solar. As part-time RVers, we love the propane option our refrigerator. has. Once the refrigerator dies, we will be forced to switch to 12V. So far, it's worked great!
My 2022 Micro Lite came with a 12 volt fridge, the only problem I'm having with it, is it gets too cold. I can have it on the lowest setting and sometimes it will freeze things.
Oh wow! We had ours on 4 of 5 and it was too cold as well. Froze the celery! 🤣 3 has been perfect for us. Maybe yours needs a tweak….. freezing on the lowest setting doesn’t sound good .
Did Aaron insulate the Louvre door for the old fridge on the outside? We went with a DC fridge in our small older trailer and it has a huge louvre door basically open to the outside.
I did leave it open for about about month and then I covered the back vent with a foam core reflectix amzn.to/3ck68Cm And the roof vent I plugged with pink insulation.
Thanks Aaron, We are adding a vitrifrigo 4.8 cu ft fridge with a separate compressor we will be mounting in our closet. This almost doubled the size fridge we could use in our tiny trailer. I’ll have to keep the roof vent but the door I hope to insulate. As always thanks for All these wonderful videos. So so helpful.
Where did you run your ground wire to? I have the power to my old fridge but just the black/white and no green. I’ll need to add the ground. Putting in the same fridge today!
The chassis ground can be run to a screw onto the frame of the RV , just make sure the metal is bare and the paint is scraped away. Enjoy the new fridge!
Nicely done ! We just took delivery of a new ORV 26KRV. Unfortunately when we ordered 4/22 the 12v refrig was not an option and the dealer was not wanting to replace ours. We are not full timers but do a few extended trips mixed in with monthly 4-6 day trips. I may replace in the future though. Most of our RV's over the last 40+ years have been absorption without issues. At least they beat the couple we had that were ice boxes.
Thanks Herb! That's too bad you couldn't order it with 12v (I Really wanted to as well with ours), but you'll love your new ORV! We didnt have any major problems with our Norcold...but it was just a pain in the butt using it for full time travel. Would love to see an ice box in a old vintage rv!
@@IreneIronTravels I had three rv's with them over the years. Nothing too exciting. 2 of them looked like a "Dorm" sized refrig but where the freezer would be you'd but a large block of ice. Same with the bigger one (about the size of a larger Coleman cooler. It had a drain tube to the outside. You didn't miss much, you're better off with the modern stuff.
We had our two-way rv refrigerator converted to a 12 V. The refrigerator is much more efficient and allows to use boondocking opportunities without much concern. We have 660 watts of solar and three 100 amp Battle Born batteries.
I found out from the Dometic company that my refrigerator/freezer is an absorption model, so it doesn’t have a pump. Therefore, there is no pump to switch out and no way to put it in and I thought other people should know this in case they run into the same issue before they buy something
Yes a 12 volt fridge has many well documented advantages. They are not the end all be all though. Its a generalization for sure but all that expensive solar is far less effective east of the Mississippi. Generators work of course but they certainly aren't an instant solution. Taking hours and in many places they are not permitted at all. Also manufacturers, sales and RV reviewers generally fail to inform about the substantial expense related to these fridges.
I see very little information online about cost savings of switching to a 12V fridge. When using our Norcold 1210 absorption style refrigerator we use either 110V electricity or propane. Is switching to a 12V refrigerator more cost efficient? We don't do a lot of boondocking anymore other than one night here and there, but we are snowbirds and pay for our electricity in the resort we stay in. Currently, if we run our refrigerator with electricity it uses about 520 Kwh per month so it costs us almost $100/Month. If we use Propane, it uses three 30 pound propane tanks so the cost decreases to about $60/Month. Would I save money monthly by switching to a 12V refrigerator? I do have a 180w suitcase solar setup that I would be using to supplement adding power to the batteries if I do this upgrade and four 6V golf cart batteries giving me 440 amp hours of usable power.
Hello! Yes hard to say exactly but I do believe you would see a big savings if you're paying for electric. Because gas absorption fridges are so inefficient they run pretty constant on electric. So ours for example was 350 watts and the new 12v is 120 watts. So it's almost 3 times as efficient. Also the compressor motor will run less and not constant like the gas absorption. As a rough estimate the 12 volt fridge can use around 100 amp hours over night.
Great video. One more added comment. Residential fridge users like me have to take our battery bank and use inverter to convert to 120v. Many people don't regard the transition lose the inverter uses to convert to 120v (20% in some units) that residential fridge. I will be buying a 12v fridge when this one falters.
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quick update to say THANKS again for the model number info. I just installed the DMC4101 replacing the Norcold N8X. I have had it running only 1.5 days, so far so good. 👍
I have 3 100 watt solar panels and use 2 - 6 volt Costco golf cart batteries and I have never ran out of power. The RV alternator does a great job , I have never had to use the generator. I have an 12v EverChill 10 cu ft fridge. Love it best upgrade ever.
Your RV has an alternator?
@@dustinryan9671 Yes , so when you drive it charges the batteries
@@johnoliva576 do you drive a motorcoach?
Whatever it is, he has to drive every day or his beer goes warm.
That just shows how we are all different in what we want in our campers. We mostly boondocks and have solar but solar does not work well enough if you are sitting in heavy fog for a week, I never want to get rid of being able to use propane for our fridge, I also love having an old fashioned oven. I hate running a generator so we just use our microwave as storage.
Thank you for doing this video, it’s very helpful. Our 2nd Dometic absorption fridge just died. Blessedly, no one was in there at the time because when I opened the trailer it was FULL of ammonia fumes.☠️ Time to upgrade to a 12 volt.
Interesting and informative videos. Sometimes a little long, but not boring. Nice, pleasant couple. Good job, guys!
just purchased 2022 ORV 24TRX and had it delivered to Iowa. Fridge worked for 2 days. Had to purchase $1800 12v fridge Dometic since no local RV dealers would deal with warranty work. Norcold sucks. Could not get factory on the phone being on hold over 5 hrs over 2 days and gave up. Luckly the Dometic slide direct in no problem. Capped off the LP line and wired the 12v in. Luv the new fridge.
Ohh thats a bummer to hear! Warranty stuff is just no fun... I think someone said ORV is finally going to a 12 volt fridge option for the 2023 models...but not sure if thats true. Glad your all hooked up now and enjoy the ORV!
It looks great finished, I like the LED lighting inside the refrigerator.
Hi Chris and Aaron! Thank you very much for coverage of this awesome upgrade! We fall into that category of only going out for 2 weeks at a time, currently. So, we will keep our propane absorption fridge. But, if it dies, I would jump all over this option! And when I retire and we start doing 1-2 month trips, all over this option too!
Safe travels!!
I will be a boondocker like yourselves. A 12V fridge is all I would ever get. PLUS you eliminated a fire hazard with the absorption fridge gone.
I really appreciate the research you’ve done, electricity usage, propane usage and more. We’re weekenders or two week trip folks for now, so absorption and electric works for us. But you’ve provided invaluable information for when we eventually go full time! (Going back to your other videos as well) Thanks!
Thanks appreciate the kind words! Thanks for watching and happy camping! 😊
I guess I will have to be about the only naysayer here.
I've been RVing regularly since 1986 and have gone through quite a few refrigerators and the 12 volts certainly now make a good option.
First, one plus I did not hear about the 12 volt compressor was the fact that propane RV refrigerators can be quite finicky when you go up in altitude (which we do a lot of mountain camping).
I also agree that propane refrigerators are simply one more thing to worry about, but then you replace this worry with the electrical worry, so I call this one a draw.
I do have to take issue though with propane usage, we often camp in warmer western state climates in the summer and we average about 2-3 gallons over a 3 week trip, which IMHO is not bad (it also does NOT run constantly with our recent models).
We also camp in areas where our solar panels are not all that effective and the average 12 volt 10 cubic foot refrigerator uses on average 8 amps dc (counting off time). This can add up to a lot, especially when I note that we've run furnaces in very cold climates and had them kill batteries in one night at an 8 amp draw.
I will also note that these DC compressor refrigerators cost less to build but the mark up is higher, which is why many RV manufacturers are now adding these, but only with two 12 volt lead acid batteries and 200 watts of solar which during an average summer day does not provide much more power than just running the refrigerator. In winter dry camping you simply will need to run a gas generator often to keep up.
Do not get me wrong, I think they have their place, but IMO and in the opinion of the RV tech I've been using for some time, these are not best for many true boon-docking RVers unless you have a really good litium battery pack and good sun much of the day (such as winter camping in the Arizona desert)
I have a 34 year old Dometic absorption that still surprises me with the temperatures -5F to 5F freezer temperatures/ 35F to 42F fridge. But the 12V compressor fridge is my dream fridge.
My dometic runs 300 watts for an hour, off for 15 mins, then 300 watts for an hour. its horrible. takes twice the power as my residential fridge twice its size with an ice maker.
@@enigma9789 I have a 390W panel up top right now but I am looking to add another 510W panel. I may remove the 390W and put two 510W panels up top. I have 800 AH of AGM batteries and have room for another 600 AH of Group 31 AGM batteries. Once I have the two panels up top and the 1400 AH of batteries I will probably upgrade to the 12v fridge. I am not full-time in the rig yet, but I am looking to move to full-time within the next year.
@@magician2020 Honestly the price of lithium batteries has gotten very low. Its almost time to switch. My camper runs on a solar shed, it has 200ah at 48v of lithium iron phosphate (8 batteries) 1200 watts of solar on the shed roof and 4000 watts on a ground mount. I still run the fridge on propane overnight because it wont handle the AC and fridge. (Im in Texas, its hot at night)
@@enigma9789 that is still pretty impressive to run the AC on battery charged by solar. I have two roof ACs but I have to run the generator for AC. I’m in Phoenix and just picked up a Hessaire Evaporative Cooler that uses 75 watts. I think a second one in the back of the rig for a total of 150 watts will cool off my rig.
I have fridge envy, I love all the shelves!
Awesome job on the install much better choice on the fridge!!!!
Perfect fit for the two of you!!! Love our 12 volt refrigerator!
Yeah! Thanks Joyce 🙏 glad yours is a good fit too!
We're FTers who love to boondock almost all the time, so have installed a serious solar/battery system. Right now, we live with an old, 8cf Dometic absorption fridge upgraded with an Amish cooling unit. It works great, even in the 90-degree range, (those Amish make good stuff) but consumes about $1 to $1.50 a day in propane depending on the ambient temp. Plus, there's the expense and time needed to go get the propane - which if you're 100 miles from nowhere at the time, is a major inconvenience, and no small expense with an 8mpg motorhome. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too often.
Our motorhome has 2 solar/battery systems. We have a 48v, 16.3 kwh LiFePo-4 battery with 4,400 watts of solar on the roof to charge it. This provides 24/7 heating and cooling using our mini split heat pump, as well as all our other 110v AC electrical needs. We can also run a 14.5k rooftop A/C during the day while still being able to charge our batteries. But we plan on upgrading to a 12v fridge powered by a 7.1 kwh (560ah) LiFePo-4 12v battery charged by a 620-watt liftable array on the side of our MH.
Right now, we use very little of our 12v system's capacity, so we have 12v power to spare. My question is, what is the most efficient and durable 12v, 10cf fridge available, and how long would it take to payback the upgrade? If we went with a $1,300, 10cf Recpro, we're looking at a 3 yr+ break even, assuming we use about $400/yr in propane. But if we choose an $1,100, 10.7cf Contoure that Camping World sells, we're only looking at a 2yr, 9mo. break even. The question is, not only which is more efficient, but which fridge will last longer?
I can't envision propane getting any cheaper in the next few years, so it looks like a DC fridge is in my future, but I don't want to discard my perfectly good propane fridge just yet. I'm planning on just waiting till it dies before I make the leap. What do you think?
I think what fridge people should go with highly depends on the climates they'll be using their trailer or RV in. Cool dry climates are really where absorption fridges excel. Oh, and whether or not they'll be plugged into shore power is pretty important too.
Its a very inefficient heat pump. Let's make more heat to MOVE heat 🤦
I don’t think climate matters anymore. All that matters is if you want to run off electricity or gas. Absorption fridges use an insane amount of electrical power to run in electric only mode.
We just upgraded our Airstream to a larger model with a 12v fridge. I was hesitant to switch from absorption to compression because of the battery usage. Like Aaron mentioned about stock systems, our new trailer came with 200Ah lithium with 270 watts of solar. Well, all the worries were not needed because that electrical system is more than sufficient to run the fridge 24/7. We even leave it on in the driveway between trips. Sometimes we won’t turn the freezer on if we’re not bringing frozen foods and this really helps lower power usage.
Agree completely that the best parts are way more useable space in the fridge, more consistent temperatures and when it gets hot out it keeps everything cold. With the absorption fridge when it got hot it didn’t keep contents at 38 degrees, danger zone!!!
12v works way better for weekend warriors also because those absorption fridges take so long to get cold, so we’d have to bring a separate ice cooler for travel time, and then you wait for the fridge to get cold at your destination, then you have to move your food from your cooler to the fridge. Then at the end of the trip same maneuver because we didn’t drive with propane on either. Way easier!
We routinely turn our absorption frig on the day before. Typically a good overnight will be enough for it to be at temp before we leave. If you put a two small size bags of ice in the freezer it cools down the rest of the frig faster. The day before works for us.
We also have a ICECO portable frig, we put in the truck when traveling to have cold drinks, and snacks. Our 5ver came with 2 30 lb propane tanks, and we have never run out of propane between the frig, hot water heater, the heater, and using a gas grill. We also love that we have 4 gas burners and a oven.
At night we can have heat on, and still not drain our two gel batteries. We like it more on the cold side, so the heat does not come on as often. We will sleep with are windows open down in the low 50's.
We have no solar. We can boon-dock well over two weeks, and never run of propane. We usually don't even fill the tanks up for every trip because they last so long.
Our routine is to turn on the (factory installed) generator in the mornings, for breakfast, hot water heater, dishes showering. Then we are pretty much out during the day. Then when we come back later afternoon, evenings we turn the generator back on for a few hours before we go to bed.
It just works for us. We are not full time.
We even occasionally run our generator on all night when we get caught with high night time temps.
We don't want the expense of a solar system, or the extra weight that takes away from our cargo capacity
It looks nice and I think you will love your new Dometic DMC4101 12 volt refrigerator.
Had a flashback when you mentioned it coming out the door of the RV. Had a boat with a smaller household refrigerator in it when I bought it and it was old, ugly and not working great. I am sure it had been in there a long time. Went to take it out and found out some trim would have to removed from the boat. Of course after removing screws trim was not coming off so I pondered solution. Not wanting to remove and maybe ruin the trim I took out the compressor, laid down a blue tarp and took my Sawzall and cut it in half vertically. People at the marina had a good chuckle.
I bought one of those iceco 52 cool with a 12 volt compressor and it works great just a little help to you attach a 12 volt computer fan blowing on the compressor it really helps the compressor keep cool and last longer , we live in the west valley in Arizona so keeping cool is a hobby for me now lol
🤣 That's great it working out for you! Soon AZ will be perfect temps!😊
I realize that this post is a year old, but I'm new to your channel. We had a gas absorption fridge for many years and got used to it. We just bought a new 5th wheel that came with a 12-volt fridge. The big advantage is how cold it gets and that you can turn your propane off (which is recommended) and keep everything cold. The disadvantage is when we're boondocking, it burns battery since we can't run it on propane, or we have to run the generator.
I have a Furion 12v compressor refrigerator in my 5th wheel. Was doing good with two 100ah lithium and no solar but recently added 400 watts of solar which Ray Sokol (the RV electric wizard) says should power the refrigerator indefinitely.
The information provided was awesome! I am so glad you included the “wiring” section. I will be checking the wiring on the back of our Outdoor Rv fridge. What was the discount code again for the fridge….. I think I missed it. Lol. I am just teasing guys. You guys are great and love your videos!
🤣 Thanks Doreen!
Great video. I have a small 16ft BH RV with an absorption fridge. I spend lots of time on the hot Arizona desert and this style of fridge doesn't even come close to being workable. A year or two ago I looked for a small 12v compressor fridge that might fit but had no luck. I'm hoping that one of the two RV fridge manufacturers will make one in the near future as these have really caught on. Until then I've been using an Acopower portable compressor fridge. I don't even turn on my old fridge and use it for shelf space.
Same RV, 22FQS 2022... I have been on quite a few trips with the gas absorption unit. It does not perform very well at all. Anything over 90 degrees and it is useless. I am going to do this upgrade exactly. Thanks for the video.
Awesome! You’ll love it!
Finally did this upgrade. Fantastic. I also blocked both vents with foil tape and some insulation as well. I let the RV get up to about 98° inside and out and the fridge held temperature. Very impressed.
Very good video. We live full time in a 2015 Northwood Nash 23D (sister company of Outdoors). We are considering upgrading to a 12v fridge. Our little 6 cubic feet fridge is starting to not stay as cold.
I replaced my refer with a 12 v. Everchill refer about a month ago and I love it. No regrets at all. I have 510 watts of solar and 300 amp hours of lithium batteries. More than enough to handle it.
Nice 👍 thanks for sharing that. Good to know on the solar and lithium.
That's our same Fridge 10Cubft Dometic. I have commented before; our previous TT had a 12V compressor 10.7Cubt Ft and we knew wanted the same in our new Grand Design 22mle So we waited the 2022 model came out with the 10Cubt ft Dometic fridge. Just like yours. Our 5th day owning TT an we got a ding on the door as well. I had forgotten a empty small plastic container on the dinette table and while towing it must of flew off and onto the door and DING lol Drives me crazy so we placed a magnet over it. Eventually I will try to take ding out; watching some YT DIY vids lol
Ha that’s great! We have a magnet over ours as well 🤣 I wonder if a suction cup dent puller would work 🤔
@@IreneIronTravels LOLI No suction cup didn't work for me. I have it here at our home. This requires a little more science or technical ability and you guys are the ones to do it.. So I'll wait to learn from you LOL You see now you have another DIY vid .. Lol
I thought something looked different? AWSOME sauce!
I love love love my 12 volt refrigerator!
🙌 nice! They are sooo great!
We just brought home a new Grand Design Reflection. It came with a big 12 volt fridge and a 370 watt solar panel. How is your fridge working out for you? I'm adding another 370w panel and lithium batteries. I hope we don't have any issues with this refrigerator!
I always amazing on the things that both of you can do !!!! Thank you for sharing and taking the time to make this video !! As always BS & BK & TC !!
Thanks for watching Larry! BS&BK & TC😊
@@IreneIronTravels thank you for this video.. I apologize if I missed it.... Does your new 12v compressor fridge have a defrost cycle? If so..how many amps does it use?
Thank you again
I'm going to get one. I do a lot of camping in Parker AZ. It's hot there and this will work better than the propane fridge
Great info. Has the same idea when we upgraded to lithium. We are weekend warriors so staying with the propane as we mostly camp in PacNW so no issues. Saving $ for lift kit on our class C!
Great video as I'm considering doing this to my RV same fridge. Thank you.... 2 other unrelated comments, being in Reno I love the Battle Born batteries you're running, and great shirt Rhymesayers kill it, huge Atmosphere fan.
Vinegar works really well to clean crud off silver stuff (with grain) and mineral oil helps make it shiny, if you're into that sort of thing.
Oh, nice..thanks for the tip! 😊
Idk why I thought it would be as easy as unplugging the old, moving it out and plugging in the new. 😆. Shows what I know. You guys are too good! Congrats on the new 12 volt fridge.
🤣 thanks! If you did a true residential fridge (110v) you could just plug that into the outlet and cap off the propane. But, those do take a bit more power with having to run your inverter😊
Great upgrade, best plus for boondocking, planning 2 weeks in the wilderness and having to be conscious everyday of food supply lasting would be equivalent of heading out cross country on bald tires, constant anxiety. Big plus, not a pilot flame burning in RV. Safe Travels
Thanks Bill! Yes, great points! 😊
I have an EverChill 12v refrigerator in my Flagstaff Microlight. All the positives that you state, but I had a cooling problem that I felt was due to no clearance between the cabinet wood trim and the refrigerator. I have a UA-cam video that explains my problem and my solution of add ventilation fans. What did you do on the exterior of your RV? Did you seal up the opening or does it still allow for ventilation?
You could install a door stopper on the bath door on the hinge. Much better than floor stopper
Nice! Looking for a smaller 12v fridge for my van, but I absolutely love the Rhymesayers Tshirt!
Thanks! We had the dometic CRX110 in our van and loved it! They have a few smaller models as well.
Love your channel! You’re spot on in all my research. Going full time soon and brushing up. You guys have amazing content! Would love to see cold weather experiences in your new Alliance 🙌
Absorbtion fridges used to be fine and could do the job but the newest ones are junk and allow their temps to swing drastically.
I upgraded my model year 2018 Norcold to a 12V compressor and added 400A of Lithium with 600 watts of solar. It was spendy but this setup is fantastic. The solar keeps up easily with the fridges daily use and if it's cloudy, the lithium can keep us going for 3 days without issue.
When I bought mine class c the first thing and then threw away that lousy refrigerator and install a 110 V refrigerator. I bought a Lowe’s on clearance for $300 10 cubic feet I love it
Have this in our 2022 Rockwood 2516s. 9 months old and it’s dying. The light flashes and it will barely crust over ice in the freezer. Have tried turning off and letting it reset.
This is on shore power.
Great video! However, what about the level of the noise (compressor & running fans). Is it noticeable? Or barely noticeable? Thank you!
We just got this same fridge and there are three modes including a silent mode. Our trailer is just a single room so the fridge is in the same space as the fridge and I just do not hear it even if I don’t put it on silent mode.
You can definitely hear the fridge when it’s running, but it’s not too bad. Our bed is less than 10 ft away and we don’t notice it at night while sleeping. 👍
Thank you for the update!!
Great info on the swap. Did you notice if the new fridge was lighter than the old one?
How much did the solar panels and lithium battery set up cost you? How do you charge your batteries in winter? P. S. A 20 lb propane tank refill cost about $18 and runs my fridge for 15 days. (@ 1.23 $/day) I run my fridge on propane 9 mos/year = 333$/year x 10 years = 3330 $. An e Volta set up is $ 25000 ....
We've always had a propane fridge, but our new AS (25 FC) will have a 12v. We never had an issue with the propane fridge, and it worked great boondocking. We do look forward to not worrying while traveling and will like having more room. We plan to have one 270ah Battleborn Gamechanger and 400 ah solar, but will add more if needed.
I love that the new Airstreams are coming with 12Volt now. I didn't talk about it in this video, but when I was van shopping one of the reason we bought the AS Interstate was because it had a 12volt and there wasn't two giant cut out vents in the side of the Sprinter van! Glad they aren't cutting up the trailers anymore! Thats a great electrical system for the fridge I think.. you're going to love it!
@@IreneIronTravels Definitely can't wait!
Our new Classic came with a 12v too. Love it compared to our 2020 Airstream that came with a propane model. Being able to leave it on while driving down the road is great.
Good job you guys !! Hope its all that you ever dreamed of Aaron !
Thanks CoCo! It is... and now I can dream about more appropriate things. 🤣
So we have had this exact model for a few months. My question is do you monitor your temperature in the fridge at all?? We are finding when it goes into defrost mode which is about every 12 hours it gets up to like 36 in freezer and 47 in fridge. It drops back down to like -11 in freezer and around 33 in fridge
We did monitor the Fridge portion only for a few weeks to figure out which setting was best for us. Right now we have it on Performance level 2 and that keeps the fridge between low 30's and low 40's as it cycles. Didn't notice a big defrost cycle swing like you did. If we put it on Performance 3 it can get too cold and freeze veggies or eggs in the back.....
Nice video!! I have a truck camper with a Norcold absorbtion refrigerator and added an additional fan to improve performance. It works well enough when parked, but in high heat, driving down the road, the freezer will get up to 40F and refrigerator gets to 60F or higher. Does the DC compressor refrigerator suffer while driving down the road? Thanks!!
Great explanation--Thank you!
I hope Outdoors RV is watching.
I agree with you on the 12 volt fridge. They are great one question are you happy with your outdoors RV and would you buy another one?
I drove over the road for 35 years and did 3.8 million miles and I had a fridge like this I paid $640 dollars for from kenrorth. Just like your home fridge either a freezer. Still have it.funs off of 12 volt. I retired in May 2020. Enjoy it
These newer 12v fridges seem much more efficient than my 7/8 yr old 12v fridges.. thanks..
If i had a lipo system like yours id definitely switch over.. gonna keep the propane for now
hi team : I have been enjoying my DMC4101 for about a month nonstop without issue, until today when the compressor/fans just sorta seemed to stop working for the freezer. It was about 26F in the freezer and very humid (94%) for a few hours. Most things on the top of the pile were very frosty and or soaked from the high humidity. (the fridge was holding temp at around 41F for many hours) I have two Govee thermostats (that measure every 10 minutes) that can send alerts in the fridge and freezer (from our misery days with the Norcold NX8 Absorption Freezer) which is how I happened to notice.
I couldn't find any info anywhere online or in the manual from Dometic about this specific symptom, but simply turning off the power to the unit (by holding the start button for 3 seconds), letting it sit idle for a short bit, and turning it on caused the compressor and fan to kick in (at least on performance mode). I figured it was worth a shot and it seemed to work. Its almost at 0F again in the freezer in less than 1 hour and seems to be working normally again and the humidity is starting to go down.
Not sure what would have happened to our frozen food if I didn't get the high temp alert from my thermostat in the freezer.
Have you guys had your Freezer stop cooling/freezing? Just wanted to note it here as you guys have such a great video and resource about this specific unit. Thank you ! (and sorry for the long winded question, hoping it will help others)
Hello 👋 Hmmm, that does sound unusual and we have not had anything like that happen. We've been using the fridge for about 6 months now Fulltime and it's been great. The freezer does have an auto defrost cycle and I wonder if it had something to do with that?? I'll see if I can contact someone at Dometic for some insight.
Hey Matt, this is what I found out about your situation. It sounds like your fridge was doing a defrost cycle... maybe it was the first one you noticed? But see below feedback from Dometic :
The defrost cycle is directly related to the compression run time and will likely vary between 8-12 hours. In cooler temperatures the compressor duty will be less so the time between defrost cycles will be longer and in warm weather the compressor duty cycle will be shorter (so more compressor run time) and the time between defrost cycles will be shorter. There is a defrost heater that turns on during the defrost cycle to help shorten the amount of time to defrost the refrigerator. The 26 °F in the freezer matches well with what temperature should be seen during a defrost cycle. If a user changes from performance mode to eco mode it will place a delay on the defrost cycle (running about half as many as it otherwise would); but by placing the refrigerator in eco mode it will also slightly raise the temperature in both refrigerator and freezer compartments. If the reoccurring defrost cycle is a nuisance, I would suggest trying eco mode and check the temps with the govee sensor to be sure its desirable/acceptable.
@@IreneIronTravels amazing ! thanks very much for this detailed description, this makes alot of sense. Maybe I missed it in the documentation, if so... I'm an idiot. 😆 I really appreciate you looking into this for me.
Hello - we have a Dometic refrigerator and are having problems as well. It's only 1 year old. This last trip our fridge went up to 50 and we had to throw a lot of food away as it wouldn't go down. When we got home, we started testing it. We have a thermometer in the freezer and refrigerator and it will show a fluctuation of up to 25 degrees in a 24 hour period. We realize that is air temperature so we put a bowl of water in there and we've been testing that with a food grade thermometer as well. It's been pretty accurate with the other thermometer in the fridge. We keep our motorhome in a storage yard and go over and see how it's doing once a day. Would you mind sharing what the fluctuation on your thermometer was?
For our 2017 Navion, ordered a Canadian mfg Nova Kool RFU6406D dual compressor 12 volt only so we won't have any problems in the hot Florida weather. Anticipate in Oct or Nov. These things are expensive with lead of 5+ months. I echo 100% on the 12 volt compressor. Reliability and repairability The BIG negative for 12v. Some major manufacturers consider a $1700 12v a throw away when it doesn't work...they're engineered NOT fully repairable. Essential due diligence. For example, the Norcold n611 terrible reliability and not fully repairable. In the early days of camping absorption only option. But now with solar and lithium 12 volts the only way to go.
You can get a thing at a hardware store that goes on the door hinge to keep the door from hitting your fridge 😊
We need that! Thanks!
Can you explain the settings and which is best for boon docking?
I'd like to replace my RV refrigerator with a 12 volt compressor type but I have limited battery storage size. A 12 volt refrigerator needs a good battery bank.
What I have found, in the summer, a gas absorbs ion refrigerator doesn't keep the refrigerator section col enough. Running on gas is less effective than running on 120 volts.
That being said, I try to arrange my RV life to be in more moderate to cool environments so my refrigerator does better.
Hi guys! Great vid! Getting ready to pull the trigger on the same upgrade. Question … How is that fridge holding up after a year or so of full time use? I too live full time in my RV. This fridge got mixed reviews so I’m just curious. Looking forward to your response. Thanks! 😎
Hello and Thanks! We sold the trailer last summer but the fridge was great for over a year. We now have a new 5th wheel with a Norcold 20NDSS and the dometic worked better!
I would never plug that line inside the rv, take the other end of the line off and cap it there. At least if it develops a leak it’s outside the rv where the breeze can do it’s magic. Also that line being unsupported is a horrible idea, the road vibration will eventually work harden and crack it. Hence the reason I’d cap it OUTSIDE beneath the coroplast
good video thanks, thinking bout replacing mine but i did not know abt this model and the size upgrade in the 8cf space? will call dometic and check on everything?
just wondering did u ck out norcold at all? has the dometic worked out till today or what 2cents can you provide?? thanks again 🤠
We sold this RV, but the dometic is running strong and we really liked it. A lot of people also use the Norcold and have seemed to like it. We have the new Norcold 19cu ft 12 volt in our new RV and it works good, but has way more condensation ( humidity) than our dometic. Could be the size difference, but it’s really ruining our vegetables in a few days….
@@IreneIronTravels ok thanks, guess the only way to resolve our issues is to have a residential unit(120v)??
I have a 2023 Montana 5th wheel and my residential frig won't stay cold while towing. Keystone told me turn batteries off. Do you do this too?? HELP
This 12 volt have a lot of problems . I am aTech de best is install a regular r.
What did you do to cover the vent in the trailer for the old fridge or did you just leave it as is?
Ahh yes, I forgot to add that part in as I did it month or so later while installing the Insty Connect Roof antenna that went down the roof fridge vent.
So for the roof vent I put most of the pink insulation you see in this video from the walls of the cabinet and it fit nicely about 10 inches deep into the top rectangle hole on the roof.
The wall vent I used a few layers of foam core radiant barrier amzn.to/3cepyJ3 to fill that part behind the fridge. Ill re check it in the colder months to see how its sealing up.
Do compressor refrigerators hold up to the constant shaking when traveling in an RV.
Yes! Some manufacturers have been putting compressor fridges in RV for over a decade. It's very popular in the Marine segment as well. 👍
Did you block up the vents 12 fridge doesn’t need any vents like a 2 way fridge?
Yes, we used insulation on the roof vent and I just used black duct tape on the side vent.
11:10, electrical units of measurement are kinda counterintuitive. Their relationship with time is exactly the opposite as, say, speed and distance. So Miles Per Hour = Amps, and Miles = Amp-Hours. So going 50 MPH for one hour moves you 50 miles, and drawing 50 amps for an hour consumes 50 Amp-Hours. So if your fridge used 50 amps overnight, it'd drain your 800 Amp-Hour battery bank in 16 hours all by itself.
Also, watts is just Volts x Amps, and then same relationship betweens Amp-Hours and Watt-Hours exists
Hey Paul 👋. What I meant was roughly 50 amps total overnight (10 hours ish) so 5 amps per hour. Just a rough guide for someone to gauge how much a fridge like this would run down a battery overnight. Hard to exactly test this while living in it and the temp does really effect it as well.
The fridge draws around 100-150 watts when it’s running and cycles about 50% of the time.
@@IreneIronTravels Hello! I know what you meant and I'm not trying to be a jerk, but you still have it exactly backwards. Your refrigerator drew 5 amps all night long (10 hours) and used 50 amp-hours of electricity.
What you're saying is "we drove 50 miles per hour all night (10 hours), and traveled 5 miles".
@@IreneIronTravels This is what I meant about electricity being counter-intuitive. For most things, the unit is capacity. A gallon of water. A mile of distance. You ADD time to get the rate - A sink does 2 gallons per minute, a car goes 50 miles per hour.
With electricity, it's exactly the opposite.
Time is part of the unit of capacity (amp-hours) and you remove time to get the rate (amps).
So GPM, MPH, and amps are all rates.
Gallons, Miles, and amp-hours are all capacities.
Ahhh yes I see what you’re saying!
I have the same absorption fridge that you just replaced and it's been one of the more miserable ones I've owned. And speaking of power, that thing draws about 35 watts on DC when the exterior cooling fans are running. On even a warm day, for me, they run all day, continuously. They don't cycle. Doing the math compared to an 8'cu compressor fridge with its duty cycling that's nearly the same amount of power used in a typical day and I'm still burning gas. So yeah, I'm so looking forward to the day that I upgrade mine. Even the cheap chest style compressor fridge I had in my teardrop was so much less hassle than any absorber I've used and I miss it. Thanks for mentioning the measurements, that was helpful. I have the same door predicament as you and have been concerned about it.
$1800 for a DC fridge or $600 for a 10 to 14 cu.ft AC fridge that uses 1kWh/day with $1200 left to spend for an extra solar panel on the roof to power it. Either choice is better than propane IMO.
How did you cover the vents that were required with the absorption fridge, and not required with the 12 fridge?
We just used a black gorilla tape (duct tape) on the inside of the vents to seal it up. I had plans to insulate better with foam board.
Curious how the long term reliability has been? I see such mixed reviews on these 12v refrigerators.
howdy Folks. Great info and really enjoy all your vids! We have an 2020 Timber Ridge OutdoorsRV, with a Norcold Absorption Refri. Our currrent model is N8XCL, the dimensions seem to be the same as the DMC4101. Any chance you know the model number of the Norcold unit you took out? Just wanna double check my measurements before ordering. Thanks and keep up the great content y'all !
Hello 👋 and thanks for watching! Our Norcold was model number N8X. I think ORV has been using the same fridge for a awhile…
@@IreneIronTravels thanks so much for your reply, I appreciate it !
I'm glad you got the fridge that you wanted! How's Louie?
Thanks! Louie's doing great! Almost 9 months old now and he's adjusting well to the RV lifestyle.😊
The dimple makes it have less wind drag therefore the refrigerator goes farther?
I’ll buy that 🤣
Subbed because of the rhymesayers shirt!
Just wondering if you had any problem getting the left hinged Dometic fridge you are showing? On their website that model # is showing up as a right hinge only? Also wondering if there were features about the Dometic you preferred over the Norcold N10DC, which is also 10 CU ‘ & will fit in that same space.
No we didn’t have any issues getting the Lh, but it might be less common… the part number is 9600026947 I believe. The Norcold is probably very similar spec wise, but I’m not that familiar with it. I have heard from a couple people they are happy with the Norcold. I do think the Dometic looks nicer and more modern with the controls on the inside like a residential fridge instead of the clunky black controls on the front of the Norcold. We are more familiar with the Dometic brand as well but either beats a absorption style in our minds 😊
@@IreneIronTravels Thanks for your input. It’s helpful. We picked up our ORV (04/22) from Thompson’s, (Pendleton, OR). It came with the standard Norcold fridge. We are full timers now, and have been spending the summer in upper MI.. We are getting so much condensation and frost, & I am over it!😂. Your video helped solidify why we might need to change out to the compressor type. We may drop by Thompsons later this fall, they can do the install, should we decide to switch out. They currently have the Norcold compressor in stock. I have asked the parts manager about pricing out the Dometic fridge for us, as a comparison. Meanwhile, just gathering info from folks like you to help us decide…many thanks.😊
@@cschadwick we are leaving Virginia JC Refridgeration in Shipshewana, Indiana on Saturday. On Monday they are switching our Norcold 1200lrim to a 2 12v compressor cooling unit. I am soooo done w/ norcold and that bandaid recall fix they did. My electric bill is outrageous. And I won't have to sleep wt a nostril open waiting for a fire.
@@rustyhurdis847 Just wondering how you are liking your 12 V fridge? We look forward to changing our Norcold out in a few weeks!😊
great information guys....
This is probably better for full-timers who have solar. It would cost a lot more to add solar. As part-time RVers, we love the propane option our refrigerator. has. Once the refrigerator dies, we will be forced to switch to 12V. So far, it's worked great!
Thank you for addressing the dimple..lol…..spotted right away….oooops!
Great Video. We currently have a Norcold 8 cu ft fridge. Will this fit in that space or is there somewhere I can look for dimensions?
I like the ability to run on propane. Almost indefinitely. When my Norcold goes NOTCOLD I will switch to 12V
My 2022 Micro Lite came with a 12 volt fridge, the only problem I'm having with it, is it gets too cold. I can have it on the lowest setting and sometimes it will freeze things.
Oh wow! We had ours on 4 of 5 and it was too cold as well. Froze the celery! 🤣 3 has been perfect for us. Maybe yours needs a tweak….. freezing on the lowest setting doesn’t sound good .
We had the GE 12 volt fridge which does NOT have a fan in it so a battery-powered fan helped quite a bit.
Did Aaron insulate the Louvre door for the old fridge on the outside? We went with a DC fridge in our small older trailer and it has a huge louvre door basically open to the outside.
I did leave it open for about about month and then I covered the back vent with a foam core reflectix amzn.to/3ck68Cm
And the roof vent I plugged with pink insulation.
Thanks Aaron,
We are adding a vitrifrigo 4.8 cu ft fridge with a separate compressor we will be mounting in our closet. This almost doubled the size fridge we could use in our tiny trailer. I’ll have to keep the roof vent but the door I hope to insulate. As always thanks for All these wonderful videos. So so helpful.
I did the opposite 3 times . pulled out 12 volt , propane and electric and put in electric residential fridge .
A tip to keep the door open for a short time: Put things you use together in a tray, like condiments for sandwiches.
very nice fridge
Where did you run your ground wire to? I have the power to my old fridge but just the black/white and no green. I’ll need to add the ground. Putting in the same fridge today!
The chassis ground can be run to a screw onto the frame of the RV , just make sure the metal is bare and the paint is scraped away. Enjoy the new fridge!
@@IreneIronTravels thank you!
Nicely done ! We just took delivery of a new ORV 26KRV. Unfortunately when we ordered 4/22 the 12v refrig was not an option and the dealer was not wanting to replace ours. We are not full timers but do a few extended trips mixed in with monthly 4-6 day trips. I may replace in the future though. Most of our RV's over the last 40+ years have been absorption without issues. At least they beat the couple we had that were ice boxes.
Thanks Herb! That's too bad you couldn't order it with 12v (I Really wanted to as well with ours), but you'll love your new ORV! We didnt have any major problems with our Norcold...but it was just a pain in the butt using it for full time travel. Would love to see an ice box in a old vintage rv!
@@IreneIronTravels I had three rv's with them over the years. Nothing too exciting. 2 of them looked like a "Dorm" sized refrig but where the freezer would be you'd but a large block of ice. Same with the bigger one (about the size of a larger Coleman cooler. It had a drain tube to the outside. You didn't miss much, you're better off with the modern stuff.
We had our two-way rv refrigerator converted to a 12 V. The refrigerator is much more efficient and allows to use boondocking opportunities without much concern. We have 660 watts of solar and three 100 amp Battle Born batteries.
Oh nice! 👍
I found out from the Dometic company that my refrigerator/freezer is an absorption model, so it doesn’t have a pump. Therefore, there is no pump to switch out and no way to put it in and I thought other people should know this in case they run into the same issue before they buy something
Yes a 12 volt fridge has many well documented advantages. They are not the end all be all though. Its a generalization for sure but all that expensive solar is far less effective east of the Mississippi. Generators work of course but they certainly aren't an instant solution. Taking hours and in many places they are not permitted at all. Also manufacturers, sales and RV reviewers generally fail to inform about the substantial expense related to these fridges.
What is the device and app using to monitor batrery useage
I see very little information online about cost savings of switching to a 12V fridge. When using our Norcold 1210 absorption style refrigerator we use either 110V electricity or propane. Is switching to a 12V refrigerator more cost efficient? We don't do a lot of boondocking anymore other than one night here and there, but we are snowbirds and pay for our electricity in the resort we stay in. Currently, if we run our refrigerator with electricity it uses about 520 Kwh per month so it costs us almost $100/Month. If we use Propane, it uses three 30 pound propane tanks so the cost decreases to about $60/Month. Would I save money monthly by switching to a 12V refrigerator? I do have a 180w suitcase solar setup that I would be using to supplement adding power to the batteries if I do this upgrade and four 6V golf cart batteries giving me 440 amp hours of usable power.
Hello! Yes hard to say exactly but I do believe you would see a big savings if you're paying for electric. Because gas absorption fridges are so inefficient they run pretty constant on electric. So ours for example was 350 watts and the new 12v is 120 watts. So it's almost 3 times as efficient. Also the compressor motor will run less and not constant like the gas absorption. As a rough estimate the 12 volt fridge can use around 100 amp hours over night.
@@IreneIronTravels Thank you. This is exactly the kind of information I've been looking for.
Anybody notice how Irene’s nose twitches as she talks?
So reminds me of Tabatha from Bewitched.
🙋♂️
Great video. One more added comment. Residential fridge users like me have to take our battery bank and use inverter to convert to 120v. Many people don't regard the transition lose the inverter uses to convert to 120v (20% in some units) that residential fridge. I will be buying a 12v fridge when this one falters.
Great point!
Did you order the left hinge model or did you swap the hinge yourself?
We ordered a left hinge model.