A Place to Ourselves

It's our last peaceful morning for awhile.

So, we're relishing it.

We're wrapping up our six-day stay at the COE park on the south side of Clinton Lake. We split our time between two campgrounds in the place. The first, Cedar Ridge, offered water and electric and a pull-through site. But, we couldn't get a clean shot at a satellite. We decided to remedy that situation by checking out the electric-only park across the street. There we found a perfectly shaded, satellite-friendly extra spacious site and decided to call it home for the remainder of our stay.

This park closes for the season on Saturday. With the last possible camping weekend behind us, the place has emptied out. It's just us and the park custodian amongst a bunch of empty sites. We've absolutely loved having the place to ourselves.

As much as we enjoy camping amongst the kids and their families all summer, we love the solitude that comes to campgrounds after Labor Day. The peace, quiet and space are a treat. And, this week, we've been blessed some of the best weather days you'll ever experience in Kansas.

We don't want to go.

But, go we must. Today we're going to Kansas City for our annual maintenance at Freightliner. Then, we'll head to our home park in the 'burbs for a two-month visit with family and friends. We're looking forward to it, of course. But, we'll be busy for sure.

So, pardon us as we enjoy one more cup of coffee in this lovely campground before we get this moose rolling.

We'll get there soon enough.

De-Icing

It’s 23 degrees in our freezer.

(That's 17 degrees warmer than yesterday.)

And, it's about 40 or so in the fridge.

Now, please remain calm. No need to panic!!

It’s time for a lesson in de-icing.

(Or, at least, we’re hoping so.)

It has been precisely 52 hours since we plugged in our new, improved Norcold. And, as you will soon see, that’s a very important number.

In our effort to consume as much information as possible about our silly refrigerator, we learned about something these things do every 48 hours or so.

They go into “de-ice” mode.

This is something our fridge has done every couple of days for the last couple of years. And, until a month or so ago, it did it without us ever noticing. That was about the time we became uber-obsessed with the temperature in our fridge and we noticed every temperature shift to the tenth of a degree. By then, our faulty control board made it so the fridge went into this cycle and didn’t always come out. (Of course, that's a problem!)

Now, it’s important to know that “de-ice” is not the same as “defrost”. As much as we’d love for these cold boxes on wheels to defrost themselves, they just can’t. That’s up to us. But, they can de-ice. That’s a process where the fridge basically turns itself off for awhile to allow the frosty fins in the back of the fridge compartment to thaw.

We think the process is time-based and not temperature-activated. As much as we’ve monitored this process we’re pretty sure about that. The de-icing process starts, like clockwork, every 48 hours. For about four hours the fridge just sits there doing nothing as it gives a goodly amount of time for the fins to thaw.

48 + 4 = 52, for those of you who are paying attention.

After about four hours the fridge fires up and gets back to the business of cooling. Within hours, give or take a few, everything is back to normal.

Of course, if it’s 97 degrees outside while your fridge goes into this every-two-day cycle, things could heat up pretty fast. Or, if you time your stocking up trip from Walmart about the time the thing starts de-icing you could load your fridge full of lukewarm groceries and be looking at fridge and freezer temps that look pretty darn scary for awhile.

Get the idea?

Some folks say that you can “reset” this cycle by turning the fridge off and then on. But, we gotta tell ya, we’re not exactly sure about that.

What we do know is that it’s been a bit over 52 hours since we plugged in our new, improved fridge. Right now, the temperature in our freezer is down to 19 degrees. We think we’ve just passed through our first de-ice cycle and everything is returning to normal.

Like I said. At least we hope so!

Six Degrees Of Refrigeration

It's six degrees in our freezer.

That's definitely the "top headline" at our house today. You see, it's been awhile since that's happened. We've been watching freezer temps fluctuate from zero to 70 for the last month. Today's steady single digits are definitely better. Much better!

Now that our Norcold refrigerator is back in the "safe zone", we can offer a brief summary of what we've learned over the last month. The first thing we learned was there is a bunch of misinformation out there. We're not claiming to be experts by any means. We're just a couple of RVers who have spent the last month dealing with a problem with one fridge and finally reaching a solution. By recapping our recent experience, we hope this information helps any fellow owners of "no"cold Norcolds that may pass this way.

Got Ammonia?

That's the first question to ask and answer when your Norcold loses its cool. If you see or smell this yellow liquid leaking from your fridge, your cooling unit (aka, the most expensive part of your refrigerator) is toast and needs to be replaced. If there's no sign of ammonia, the good news is your cooling unit might be OK. The bad news is you get to do some time-consuming trial-and-error troubleshooting.

Time and Temperature

These are the essential tools to troubleshooting your troublesome fridge. Gas absorption refrigeration is a slooooooow process. With every test you need to give the fridge plenty of time (like 24 hours) to "stabilize" and reach its best possible temperature. Of course, you need to be able to effectively monitor the temperature inside the fridge, ideally without opening any doors. We placed the outdoor sensor for our indoor-outdoor thermometer in the freezer and placed a "mercury" thermometer on the shelf near the fins in the fridge.

Got Air?

Gas absorption refrigerators need air to work. So, the first thing to check is that you fridge is getting all the air it can. Open your vents and check behind and above your fridge and in your flue and around your fans to make sure the flow of air is unrestricted.

Got Heat?

It takes heat for your fridge to keep its cool. Set the fridge temp on its highest setting and locate the "burner" on the back of your fridge. The area should be warm and any surfaces near the burner should be hot to touch. (They can be extrememely hot.) Run this test with the fridge set on "electric" and then on "gas". If you have no heat on either source, chances are your cooling unit needs to replaced. If you have heat with either or both, it's time to do some serious testing.

Pull The Thermistor

The thermistor is the thing that tells your fridge when to turn on and off. On our Norcold, it's a wire that runs from the light in the ceiling of the fridge to a clip on one of the fins in the back of the inside of the fridge. When you set the thermostat on its highest setting and remove the thermistor, you put the fridge in "emergency cooling mode". Give the box 24 hours of undisturbed cooling time. If temps are in the safe zone, your cooling unit is working. But, something else isn't. The first thing to replace is the thermistor. For about 20 bucks you can replace this part yourself. (No tools required!) After you've installed the new thermistor, give the fridge another 24 hours and check. If all is well, great! If not, it's time to check the control board.

Control Board

The control board is the "brains" of the cooling operation. It takes commands from the thermistor and tells the cooling unit how to work. We called on professionals we trust to test our control board. It failed the test. Replacing the control board is easy, but not exactly cheap. The ticket for our job was nearly $400. (Thanks to our extended warranty, our cost was $250.)

Cooling Unit

We gave our Norcold 24 hours to stabilize after the new control board was installed, and on a cool September morning in Kansas the freezer was the warmest spot in our house! With that, the evidence was clear. Our cooling unit, which had been dying a slow death, was gone. The most likely cause of death was a blockage of crystallized ammonia. It probably moved around awhile, which explained the fridge's off-and-on performance. With the blockage in its final resting place, it was time to replace the cooling unit.

At this point in our refrigeration adventure, we considered a couple of options. The first was what is known as the "Amish Cooling Unit". This aftermarket cooling unit is reported to be of better quality and have significantly higher performance than the Norcold. It's on backorder for weeks, plus we weren't exactly sure our extended warranty would cover a non-OEM replacement of this $2000 part. The second option we briefly considered was replacing our Norcold with a residential-style refrigerator.

This is an individual decision, to be sure. We opted to replace the cooling unit with another Norcold. There may be a residential fridge in our moose's future. But, for now, this was the quickest and easiest way for us to obtain the six degrees of refrigeration we were so desperately longing.

The new cooling unit arrived in a couple of days. (We spent those days in the good company of friends Sandy, John and Koko, who made a stopover at Melvern Lake en route to their new winter home in Arizona. They provided a most welcome distraction from our not so cool problem. It was great to see them!) Back at the repair facility, it took just a couple of hours for a couple of techs to slide out the fridge, place it face down on the floor of the moose, remove the old unit off the back, install the replacement and slide it back in.

Now that we have replaced the thermistor, control board and cooling unit, the "guts" of our Norcold are brand new. One of our techs pointed out that the only remaining part that could cause any trouble is the icemaker motor. ("Bite your tongue!" was my response to that little ditty.)

With handshakes with the trusty techs and a tip of the hat to our extended warranty company, we made our way late yesterday to another beautiful COE park at Clinton Lake, just a few miles from one of favorite towns: Lawrence, Kansas. We're looking forward to enjoying a few days getting reacquainted with our old college town.

Meanwhile, our new and improved Norcold will just be chillin'. In fact, I just heard the icemaker dump. What a wonderful sound!

Kaputt

That's the state of our fridge. We declared it so yesterday.

Let's just say yesterday wasn't a very good day, and leave it at that.

We're now the proud owners of a 2.7 cubic-foot refrigerator that looks like it belongs in a college dorm. We've rearranged our dining chairs to give it a temporary home until we can get the "Nocold" repaired. It's big enough to keep a few essentials chilled. Just a few!

Meanwhile, we'll enjoy the company of family who are gathering here in Monett to celebrate a really big birthday this weekend.

And, oh yeah. We'll eat out a lot.

Dear Diary

I don't actually have a diary, per se. But, these days I feel like I need one. I don't need no ordinary run-of-the-mill diary. You see, I need an HVACR Diary. (I'll explain the R in just a bit.)

Since we had our loose connections on our heat pump fixed, we've been watching our thermostat like a couple of hawks. It seems that our AC is working just fine, thanks. But, you see, we're just not sure. So, it feels like we need to start a diary that reads something like this. September 12, 2011, 3:55 PM. Ambient temp: 94 degrees. Thermostat: 77 degrees. Inside temp: 80 degrees to 77 in 59 minutes.

That all sounds good. But, who really knows for sure? We feel like we need to write it down and document it all.

The "R" is all about our stupid-ass refrigerator. (You see, I have a pet name for it now.) It seems it may have had a "brain fart" again last night. It was warm this morning and got warmer as we made our way from Lake Melvern to Monett. I needed to write it down in my HVACR Diary, but I didn't. We picked up a new thermistor this afternoon, which is the cheapest fix on the troubleshooting flowchart of not-cooling-so-well refrigerators. But, so far, that didn't seem to do the trick. So, my diary entry needs to include that. Right now, we've turned the stupid thing off for a couple of hours hoping that will reset its mixed up brain. We shall see.

It'll all work out, sooner or later. We know it will.

Meanwhile, like I said, I need to keep a diary to keep track of these things. Is the heat pump cooling? or heating? or not? Is the fridge doing its thing? or something else?

Only my dear diary knows for sure!

Connections

Two months ago today we were fuming in Salt Lake City, recovering from our far from satisfactory experience with Blaine Jensen RV. In a related post, we warned our friends to avoid the place like the plague. Here's an excerpt from our write-up about the experience.

The service tech told us the news was bad. Repairs were needed that would require more than one day, and maybe several. The bill was certain to be at least $1500. Maybe more. And, that's if they could get the parts they needed. Worse yet, he reported, the heat pump manufacturer said it would not honor its two-year warranty on this 19-month old unit.

Wanna' hear the rest of that story?

Yesterday we took the moose about 40 miles south of Kansas City to A-Z Mobile RV in Paola, Kansas. They have a new, three-bay facility there that gives them the space to take care of really big jobs like servicing basement heat pumps. We came across three states to this place for one simple reason: We trust them.

Bullwinkle was backed into a bay immediately after our arrival and the techs went to work. Paul and I headed off for a late breakfast and put together a plan to keep ourselves busy for the next couple of days. About an hour later, A-Z gave us a buzz to let us know they had wrapped up the job.

Say what?

We rushed back to the shop and joined two techs sitting in the moose. As we stepped inside we couldn't miss the rush of icy cold air coming from the ceiling. Our heat pump was working!

What was the problem?

Was it a failed compressor? Or, a refrigerant leak? A blown control board, perhaps?

Nope.

It was a loose connection.

The techs explained that the first thing they do when they see a problem like this is tighten all connections and then test. With freshly tightened connections, our heat pump was firing on both compressors. It heated and then cooled like a champ.

Quite understandably, our heat pump manufacturer doesn't cover loose connections under warranty. So, this fix was on our dime.

And, how much did it cost?

Did we have to spend $1500, as the crooks in Salt Lake City suggested? Or, some other four-figure amount? Was it half that? Or, double?

No, the cost to restore normal heating and cooling to our rolling home was a whopping $85, plus tax.

(We're so kidding about the "whopping" part.)

Of course, we're delighted to have a functioning heat pump. And, we're thrilled that it cost so little to make it so. But, we're more irritated than ever with the dishonest dealership we dealt with two months ago. We're trying really hard not to dwell on that.

With the moose back in tip-top shape before noon, we found ourselves with a new dilemma. We had planned to spend at least a couple of days waiting on service. Suddenly, we were free to move about the country. With no particular place to go, we didn't know what to do! So, we did what many RVers would do.

We went to Walmart!

It had been awhile since we'd stocked up on provisions. So, we were in need. As we traversed the aisles and filled our cart, we hatched a plan to spend a few days at a COE campground about an hour away. Standing amongst the canned goods, I gave the park a call and was assured there was plenty of space for us. A couple of hours later we were all set up in a level, shady, satellite-friendly spot with a lovely lake view. Because we could, we turned on the air conditioner and watched the temperature plummet five degrees in less than an hour.

All is right with our world!

We Made It!

It's been 10 days and nearly 600 miles since our last post. And, we have just one thing to say.

We made it!

We made it across Kansas to our home park near Kansas City, with an overnight stop at the coolest campground ever in Ellis, Kansas and a couple of nights visiting family in Salina. We're oh so happy to be here in our old stomping grounds to celebrate the holiday weekend.

Now that we've been here in our home park for a night and a bit we can say we've made it in another way. We survived the mid-80s in Colorado Springs, the high-90s in Ellis and temperatures well over the century mark in Salina. Our first day here in Kansas City the temperatures topped out near 100 degrees. Today, thank God, the cooler weather came. With temperatures rapidly climbing past 90 degrees this morning, the skies clouded and the rains came. By 4:00 pm, the temperature outside was down into the mid-70s. And, the moose wasn't too far behind. Our boy only has half an air conditioner, but he was quick to recover and adapt to the new and improved temperatures here in Kansas City.

It's not quite Gunnison, but it'll definitely do.

Yes, we've made it. We've made it across Kansas and into temperatures that are tolerable. We can't ask for more than that. Come Wednesday we'll take our moose in for service to repair its faulty compressor and prepare it for heating and cooling in the extremes.

Meanwhile, we'll enjoy the company of family over a holiday weekend in temperatures that we can definitely tolerate, even with half a heat pump.

We definitely made it!