Fridges (1 Viewer)

[bb wales]

Hi All,

I have a question which I believe the great collective of funsters can help me with. I am new to the world of MH's and have seen mention of compressor fridges, we have a 3 way automatic fridge in our MH and it does not work on 240V (having it checked out later this month) so my question is:- what is the difference in the fridges and are compressor fridges more expensive? I am asking just in case I am told the 240V side of ours is kaput!!!!!!

Many thanks

regards

Bob

 

[Techno]

If it works on 12 volts and gas then the cooling unit is fine. Failure on 230 volts will most likely only be the element.

 

[Eddystone]

It may be a silly question but have you checked that the trip/fuse is ok and any switch near the fridge is on?

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[trevorf]

Very common for the 230V mains element to fail on fridges. Should cost you around £25-40 for a new one depending on the model.

 

[bb wales]

Thank you all for your help

 

[Techno]

Let us know how it goes Bob

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[bb wales]

Hi,

I was asked to keep you informed what happened with my fridge, we went away last weekend and the blasted thing stopped working on gas as well so took it into the doctors yesterday and with putting a new gas jet in, a new tube everything is now working fine, it has been on test last night and today so with the money we saved we have had an omni vent fitted with fan, that should cool the dear lady down when we are in Spain.

Regards

Bob

 

[Anthony496]

To answer the original question about what's the difference let me explain...if I can without making it worse !

Compressor fridges only operate on electricity wether it is 12v or 240v. This is because there is a mechanical reciprocating or rotary compressor in the fridge to compress and move the refrigerant around; this requires electric to run.

A 3 way automatic fridge is an absorbtion type fridge which uses a heating element (gas/240/12v) to boil off a chemical inside (sometimes ammonia sometimes butane combined with other elements etc) this type of system has no moving parts within the system (except for fans to reject heat if fitted) and is arguably more reliable than the compressor type which has several moving parts.

When the old absorbtion systems used to play up we used to turn them upside down then let them settle and restart and 9 times out of 10 it would sort them out!

The absorbtion systems prefer to be on level ground the compressor type are more forgiving.

Cheers


Anthony

 

[bb wales]

Thank you for the explanation Anthony

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[DanielFord]

Just a thought, ours had a similar failure, would not work on 240v (or so I thought). Everything in the freezer thawed out. After much head scratching, I unplugged the thermistor (which is clipped to the cooling fans). And then set the temp to 3 bars. You will get an error on the screen, but the fridge goes into fail safe mode, and operates on time not temperature.
After 4 hours the freezer was frozen again, so I replaced the thermistor (about £10 if memory serves) and it has been fine ever since.
Another thing, was it a very hot day when you noticed that it wasn't working? The fridges do not work well in high ambient temperatures. We have fitted a cooling fan to our condenser to sort that out. We also noticed whilst travelling around Italy, all the Italians arrive on site, and remove the top vent from the fridge to aid cooling!
A couple of things for you to think about

 

[DBK]

To add to the description of the difference between compressor and absorption 'fridges, which is what the 3 way ones are, it is generally accepted that compressor ones work better than absorption ones when it is very hot. You can fit cooling fans which will help the gas 'fridge work better when it gets up above about say 30C but a compressor 'fridge will still be working at 50C - long after you have packed up and moved somewhere cooler! They are also potentially a bit noisy but I suspect models differ. I would also argue they are more reliable than 3 way 'fridges.

 

[CandC]

To add to the description of the difference between compressor and absorption 'fridges, which is what the 3 way ones are, it is generally accepted that compressor ones work better than absorption ones when it is very hot. You can fit cooling fans which will help the gas 'fridge work better when it gets up above about say 30C but a compressor 'fridge will still be working at 50C - long after you have packed up and moved somewhere cooler! They are also potentially a bit noisy but I suspect models differ. I would also argue they are more reliable than 3 way 'fridges.

With regards to the noise of a compressor fridge... I fitted a compressor fridge to our van just before our recent Scotland trip. On the first night, I was quite conscious of it and it may well have kept me awake for a little while but once I got to sleep, it didn't wake me. After a couple of days, I barely registered it coming on and by the end of the trip had become so used to it that I didn't notice it at all.