Tales of a Warm Refrigerator

Sunday June 14 to Thursday June 18, 2015                                                                                  Previous post link:
Big Meadows Campground                                                                                                                             Sunrise in the Big Meadow                 
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

 

 

 

SUNDAY JUNE 14 cont.

 

It’s only 8:00 in the morning, when I return from  my wonderful morning in the meadow (see link above for most recent post).   I eat some breakfast – raw oats, heritage flakes, sliced banana, ground flax seed and blueberries.  It’s a great day and perfect temperature for cleaning off the solar panels.

 

 

Then just right for sitting around and reading. David’s reading Idylls of the King by Tennyson.  Don’t ask me why.  I’m reading the place appropriate Shenandoah:A Story of Conservation and Betrayal.

 

 

We don’t actually get much reading done.  We’re too busy watching the actions going on around us.  I don’t mean our fellow campers.  They are all out and about.  We’ve left the park to them today.  I mean the permanent residents of the campground.

For instance, while we are sitting in our new loungers a red start flies in and out of the tree just in front of us.  And then two of them do. 

 

They hardly stop for an instant so these pictures aren’t the best.  But aren’t they stunning?

 

 

While they are “out and about”, David sneaks a picture of their nest which is in the tree directly in front of our chairs.  Talk about a front row seat.

 

But they aren’t the only ones busy today.  A wren has a juicy morsel in another tree by our patio.

 

The Brown Thrasher is looking for things in the grass.

 

 

 

Not sure why after looking so carefully around this chipmunk decides to sneak up on our patio.  He seems totally surprised to see us there.  Wish I could have gotten the look on his face when he looked up.  Shock and then zoom he’s gone.   Really too funny!

 

Here he is on the patio just beyond the awning screen which we took down in order to see the birds better.

 

 

 

Unfortunately that was the best part of this day.  We have been having off and on trouble with our refrigerator keeping things cold.  The freezer is fine, the fridge not so much.   We’ve called Norcold and been told basically that they don’t talk with end users only with certified Norcold technicians.  Emphasis on the word CERTIFIED.  Without internet or a phone it’s pretty tough to find such an animal. 

At dinner time we find the fridge is now at 50 degrees.  We have an N code.  We clear the N code.  We get another N code.  The manual says this will turn off the fridge and lock it.  The only way to get the N Code cleared is ….you guessed it….by a CERTIFIED Norcold technician.   We’re going to lose all our food and we are in excess of 20 miles from the closest grocery so I go up to the lodge and search on the Norcold website for certified in our area while David hastily packs up Winnona for a trip to Charlottesville where we can plug into electricity and save the food while we hunt.

 

 

MONDAY June 15

We’re in town, we have internet and phone.  Monday morning I’m up early and calling the 4 places I found within 75 miles of Charlottesville.  Two are business and two are mobile techs.   The first business has no idea what I’m talking about.  They sell horse trailers.  Why are they on the Norcold website.  They have no idea.  Strike one.  So I call a mobile tech.  He’s 65 miles away and can’t come until Friday.  Nope, it’s 95 degrees down here in the foot hills.  The other tech is even further away so I break down and call the dealer.  Charlie Obaugh RV in Staunton.   They can take us at 10:30am and they do have a certified tech.

David takes Winnona over.  The tech checks everything out, AC voltage DC voltage to the board, burner flame, igniter, function of the solenoid, condition of the cooling unit which shows no sign of leaks.  He also does the service reset on the main board to clear the N code and shows David how to do it.  In short he can’t find anything wrong.  For this we are charged $40 but of course it was a 166 mile round trip and cost us more in gas to go over the mountain to the valley and back.  But it’s working better it seems so in the afternoon we come back up to Big Meadows where we still have our site waiting for us.

 

 

TUESDAY June 16

 

David has removed the thermister from the refrigerator at the technician’s suggestion to make it run at max.  Other than that he has no idea what to do.  That seems to be working and the food is cold enough though not down in the 35 to 40 range it really needs to be.  We’re hoping things will get better. 

In the meantime we enjoy watching this quartet wander around the campground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re smiling at dinner.  The refrigerator is still working.  But of course, skeptic that I am, I’m not convinced it’s fixed.  Nobody did anything so I’m afraid that whatever is wrong, is still wrong.

 

 

 

 

WEDNESDAY June 18

 

I really do hate being right about something when I’d rather not be?  Well 24 hours on LP and the refrigerator is back to its tricks. It’s not cooling properly.   David has days and days of notes on this situation.  He’s recorded Temperatures and what else we were using and well those of you who know him can imagine the charts and lists that were created. 

He was checking with AM Solar to see if to see if the DC voltage when running the microwave might have dropped below the lower limit needed by the refrigerator DC circuit.  After checking our meters and their history we find it did not.

I keep repeating that the real clue here is that everything works fine on AC power and the freezer works fine on LP but not the refrigerator.  The problem is obviously something about the refrigerator and LP.

David goes down the mountain for his velcade shot.  I stay here with the refrigerator and make sure I use nothing all day long.  Nada, no electric, no solar, no LP.  Easy to do actually in the beautiful weather.

BUT when David returns, the refrigerator goes to N code again even without the thermister.  So, we reset it twice again and put it on AC on the batteries.  We sure can’t do that for long.  I’m pulling my hair out.

We can’t leave the refrigerator on AC over night or we’ll drain the batteries too low. 

 

 

THURSDAY June 19

In the morning, we find the temperature has climbed again, the n code is back. I clear it on the panel, it comes back, David clears it again.  The food that was re-chilled with electricity is heating up with LP. Norcold still won’t talk to us. I’m fed up with the whole thing and pitch a fit insisting that we are just going to stop collecting data and  replace everything we can.  If that doesn’t work I don’t have a clue.

So it’s back up to the lodge to use the internet where  I hunt around trying to find the specific thermister, burner/orifice kit and the igniter that this Norcold N822 needs and that I can get my hands on TODAY. Well of course Amazon has them all but there’s no delivering them today. Prime is now not over night which might be OK but 2 days which actually means 3 days I find out. If you order on Tuesday, they deliver on Friday. Two business days to get it to you. Nope. I call Charlie Obaugh back. They have one of the three.

David stays with Winnona and fixes her slide topper anti-flap bracket and puts a 3rd seal on the top of the front windshield where we have had a small leak. I take Ruby back down the mountain to Staunton and pick up the burner/orifice. Takes about 3 hours to get there and back driving 35 miles an hour on the Skyline Drive to the Route 33 exit and down into the valley. Cost of the part $48 (cost of the part from Amazon $30.50 + tax)

 

In 30 minutes, after days of calls and data collection and notes and two trips to Staunton not to mention a MOUNTAIN of  aggravation, David puts on the new burner/orifice and we are back in business. Everything is COLD again.

Yes the technician said the flame looked good. David thought it did too. But once he puts the new one on, he can see there is a BIG difference and I sure wish I’d thought to take before and after flame pictures for you. My advice after all of this is that if your refrigerator working on AC but is not cooling on LP and your freezer is,  just replace the burner/orifice no matter how the flame looks. It’s an inexpensive fix and could save you a lot of time and irritation.

 

Disconnect the burner from the burner tube feeder line which goes from the solenoid to the burner/orifice assembly.  Take the burner/orifice off, connect the new one on, reconnect them.  Test with soapy water and you’ve done it.   And you don’t have to be a CERTIFIED Norcold technician.

 

 

Not much difference other than color here but the larger openings clearly made all the problems.

 

Finally a sound sleep under a new moon without refrigerator worries.  
And most importantly, it stays fixed!! 
Definitely a happy ending to my tale.

 

 

 

THE END