Chinook RV

1998 concourse. Just turned refrig. on. It was 90 Degrees in freezer. 50 deg. 1 1/2 hour later. Refrig compartment still feels warm. Not familiar with "ammonia" type set up. How long for cold air to "spill over " into refrig. compartment?? Just trying to get things ready for a several day trip to the beach. I am running it on AC current and thermostat on super cold setting.

I never used the one in my Chinook (so maybe someone else will be along with specific info), but absorption refrigerators are known to be quite slow to cool down. From 90, which is danged hot, I don't think yours sounds excessive. This is why you hear of people plugging their refrigerators in a couple days before a trip to "cool down."

Compressor refrigerators are faster. But of course they don't run on propane.

I thought ours was broke when we first used it ,it took so long to cool down but that's normal. We turn it on 2 days before a trip now and that works out good.

Dependent on weather, we turn on the fridge one or two days before loading.

Starting from ninety is pretty warm. Put a bag of ice in there to help if you're in a hurry.

Open the outside access panel and check for leaks, and that the heat chimney up to the roof is clear.

Also, try to only put in food that's already cold from your house or store, so it doesn't have to cool down the food.

It took a long time, and if the temperature outside is good, says around 60 at night, we can get away with turning it on the evening before, and the next morning, it will be nice and cold. If the temperature is hot like 90F, it will take longer. You maybe able to put a small fan (3 or 4 inch diameter) near the vent and see if that help. Ours came with a solar-powered fan, installed by previous owner to help with the cooling, but it did not survived long under the California sun.

Try to only put cool/frozen things in there like other suggested, every little bit helps.

Thank you everyone. I guess my unit IS working as it should and I am learning a lot. It has been 24 hours and the freezer got down to 10 degrees on high setting and refrigerater got down to 32. So... I turned the thermostat down to the middle on 3 and checked after 2 hours. It is staying at 38-40 degrees . I think that will be good. Our heat index here today is at 107 degrees. Actual temp hit 98 already. I have frozen many bottles of water to put in to help keep it cool while traveling or I guess I could put it on DC current while driving. I have all my drinking water in the refrigerator in the house now to precool. Thanks for all the advise. I'm just glad it is working!!

We were using DC mode while driving, but found out it is so inefficient, the refrigerator was just as cold after driving if we leave it turned off. So now we just leave it off while driving and try to keep it closed. I do keep several frozen water bottles in the freezer which helps it act like an "ice box" during the day. We are quick to get it on propane or AC as soon as we stop, or if we park somewhere for an hour during the driving. DC mode even while driving was a big drain on the house batteries, or kept them from charging much during the drive. It will warm up some when driving on a hot day, but overnight on propane or AC will get it cold again by morning.

Clay

Yeah, DC on "3-way" refrigerators is *ridiculously* power hungry. Like 30 amps type power hungry In contrast, a really big compressor refrigerator (8 cu. feet) might take 5 amps on DC, and a slightly smaller one 3.x amps.

I can easily see the house bank still having a net loss if running the absorption refrigerator on DC while driving, especially considering the losses (voltage drop) in the stock wiring. I mentioned this elsewhere here recently, but most newer absorption refrigerators don't even have the DC "way" anymore (they are 2-way).

We keep it on propane almost all the time except when docked. I did not realize some of the possible issues with this until we got gas at a gas station, and drive off, and started to wonder about the warning sticker by the gas cap.