Refrigerator problem

[sam-HILO]

Another wonderful camping trip. The last two camping trips this occured. Raised up the HiLo with no problems. Then attempted to put the ref. on propane. Wouldn't work. Then hooked uo to electricity for a short while. Then was able to switch the ref. to propane. The trailer has solar and the battery is fully charged and the water level is fine. Read our dometicref. manual. Hate to just buy parts and throw it at the problem. The Ref. is twelve years old. this is the first problem we have had. Seems like an intermitent problem. DH looked in the back exterior of the ref. Unplugged all conections and plugged them back in. Removed control panel at the floor level didn't see anything loose. No corosion noted. Any thoughts on what is happening?

 

[sam-HILO]

Ref. problem

See first post on this. Does anyone have a guess as to why this problem is happening?

 

[JackandJanet]

Hi sam - I don't have a solution, but my refrigerator is always reluctant to shift to propane when I arrive at a camping spot. It always seems to want to revert to DC for a while. I've tried making sure the gas lines have been flushed by lighting the water heater and one of the stove burners, but what seems to work is to turn the fridge off, then back on and select the "Auto" position.

Once it starts working on propane, I have no further problems (until I move on to the next campground.)

- Jack

 

[sam-HILO]

Ref. problem

Jack,Thanks for the reply. I will have DH read the post. He may call our HiLo service advisor and see what he thinks.

 

[sam-HILO]

More information

DH read your post. Our ref. doesn't have a board in it. We store it ten minutes away from our home. Not enough time to get a full charge on the battery driving such a short distance. Dh really things thinks things change as they get older. Next time he will plug into our house exterior outlet and let the outlet give it a boost. Electricity before propane. We always camp with electric and run the ref. this way.

 

[JackandJanet]

OK, sam - I wondered if your fridge was controlled like mine and it's apparently different. The few times we've camped where there's an electrical hookup, I've elected to run the fridge on propane anyway. Early in our relationship with this trailer I found that running EVERYTHING off shore power popped the campground circuit breaker a couple times. Of course, that may have just been a weak campground circuit breaker.

- Jack

 

[sam-HILO]

Ref. problems.

Dh always uses a multimeter to test the campground electric before we plug in. Only once when it was real hot and everyone was using the electric we couldn't use our AC. The next day it cooled off. This was a state park. Haven't been back to this one in 5/6years. Seems like you should be able to run everything on electric. Just had to fill up one of our 30lb. propane tanks. $12.50 with no tax at the Indian Reservation. I will have DH call our HiLo dealer tomorrow and see what the service advisor says.

 

[dennyesser]

Do you have a switch next to your "up down" switch that doubles as a master switch for your DC power? If so, make sure it is on when you run your fridge on propane, because it needs the DC power to ignite your burner.

 

[sam-HILO]

No master switch

Our unit is a 1990 25ft. Classic HiLo. The only toggle switch is a up/down switch to raise the unit up and down. The refrigerator was replaced 12yrs. ago. Our retrofit is only gas and electric. Can't run it while traveling. Not a problem for us.