Adding fans to upper outside refrigerator side vent
Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 6:15 pm
As I'm sure many of you know from first hand experience our 20 year old dometic refrigerator doesn't operate so well in warm/hot climates. In general this is not a problem for me since I tend to confine my summer adventures to the west coast or mountains where the daytime highs are in the 60-70 degree range and lows are 35-55 degrees. In these conditions the refrigerator works great and if anything my biggest problem is keeping it from freezing everything n the lower compartment. Right now on the Oregon coast the outside temp is about 65 degrees and the fridge is reading -2 in the freezer and 39 in the refrigerator on a setting of "2" which is awesome.
However since I live in the Midwest, I have to traverse long stretches of hot climates in June and August when traveling to an from home. And during these periods the refrigerator struggles and I end up having to use an ice chest to keep the food from spoiling.
So I'm hoping that someone here has added one or more fans to the upper outside refrigerator vent. If you have, I'd love to know what specific components you used and where you obtained a constant 12v power source for this purpose. Pictures of course would be extremely helpful. I'd also be interested in knowing if this helped and whether it made a big enough difference to warrant the time and expense versus buying a new refrigerator like the Norcold 300,3 that seems to get high marks here.
I appreciate any help with this and if you know of other sites that have relevant information I'd appreciate knowing that as well. Right now this is strictly a research and planning project as I will not tackle it until I rerun home at the end of summer.
Mike
However since I live in the Midwest, I have to traverse long stretches of hot climates in June and August when traveling to an from home. And during these periods the refrigerator struggles and I end up having to use an ice chest to keep the food from spoiling.
So I'm hoping that someone here has added one or more fans to the upper outside refrigerator vent. If you have, I'd love to know what specific components you used and where you obtained a constant 12v power source for this purpose. Pictures of course would be extremely helpful. I'd also be interested in knowing if this helped and whether it made a big enough difference to warrant the time and expense versus buying a new refrigerator like the Norcold 300,3 that seems to get high marks here.
I appreciate any help with this and if you know of other sites that have relevant information I'd appreciate knowing that as well. Right now this is strictly a research and planning project as I will not tackle it until I rerun home at the end of summer.
Mike