we have a three way THETFORD Fridge . Van is just over two years old. Works without any problems on 240 and on 12v when travelling. We are finding with gas after we open the door it will go up to around 6 degrees ( we have a wireless thermometer) . For example today, not a hot day, fridge in shade, we opened it quickly a couple of times at lunchtime and it went up to 6, after 7 hours on high it has only now gotten to 1. Would this be normal. Also sitting inside the van you can hear the gas, is this normal. Just trying to find out if this is to be expected. Our last van only had a small fridge but worked the best on gas. Any help much appreciated
As it plays up only on gas it could be a faulty flu or dirty. Get a Thetford agent to look at it. As it is 2 years old it's probably just out of warranty but you might get lucky. The fridge that is :)
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We had a similar situation with our fridge, a Dometic, but same performance issue. Refrigeration tech tested the gas pressure at the fridge and declared the gas supply was fine. Actually it wasn't. The gas pipe had been flattened, and while there was plenty of pressure, there was insufficient flow to cool effectively. The copper pipe is installed inside a plastic tube, but you can feel along its length to see if there is any hidden damage.
I would not have expected the Gas Burner to be dirty, being only two years old, but it could be.
The Exhaust Flue can have deposits like soot, rust, road dust, on the inside. These can become dislodged and drop onto/into the burner causing a slight reduction in the Gas Flame, and the fridge efficiency.
I used to notice it a lot after travelling over bush roads for a day, Upon switching the Fridge to Gas, that the gas flame was very reduced. It was a combination of dislodged Flue Debris, and red dust blocking the burner. I am only talking of a tiny amount of debris.
I used to carry a short piece of 6mm plastic pipe that I could feed into the burner and give it a blow out the burner tube. That usually got it up and running again.
I did have a problem with the fridge one time that was caused by the OLD gas regulator. Put a new one on the bottle problem solved. Gunk in the reg. They don't last forever.
The video explains it. I am not saying you should do this yourself, it's just for clarity.
