Defrosting Fixed the Problem

I keep a thermometer inside the refridgerator to reassure me that the food is being kept nice and cold. We have never had trouble with any of our refridgerators in all our years of RVing, however one day I noticed that our refridgerator was getting warmer inside. I had a sinking feeling that the control board was failing or I had a leak in the coils or something like that.

My freezer worked great, in fact there was about a half inch of ice on the back wall and around the sides. When this happened we had only been full time RVers a short while. Our prior RV trips never lasted more than three weeks so the freezer never really had a chance to ice up. I always cleaned out the fridge when we came home from a trip and propped the doors open to air out. I thought, “Hmm, I’ll defrost it and if that doesn’t help I’ll take it back to the dealer for repairs.” So I turned off the power, open the doors and let it defrost. Sure enough, that did the trick. The refridgerator ran like a champ after that. So now we routinely defrost the freezer and the refridgerator. We take out all the frozen stuff and put it in this handy insulated food tote that we purchased at WalMart last year. We take the stuff in the refridgerator and just stack it on the counter. Then we turn off the power to the refridgerator and leave the doors open and let nature take its course. The defrosting process doesn’t take very long (especially if you do it every month or so.) Why do we defrost the refridgerator section? Because the aluminum fins in the back can accumulate ice. We take this opportunity to clean all the shelves and wipe down the inside of the unit. Once I sop up all the melted ice and clean the surfaces inside the freezer I turn the power back on and replace the food. So, as it turns out the refridgerator wasn’t broken after all, it was another case of user error. Keep cool. Jim