Thank you for this DIY video I was about to waste even more money on my rv to get someone to do this for me. You are a life save. Keep the videos come and thanks again.
I did it!! Following your videos, I got rid of the horrible Dometic and installed the Hisense fridge! Thank you so much for the great videos and being so awesome about responding to my questions. I have cross posted in several of the GD pages. Thank you, again!
🤗🥳🥳👍👍 You are going to L❤VE the new fridge! No more defrosting the freezer. No more fighting with it when it gets hot. We still can't get over how much more room the fridge has.
Man, that is quite the project! We have a residential fridge in our 5th wheel BUT it went out on us after less than 3 years. We had to take it out our back window! Thanks for showing us all the ins & out of the removal & how it was bolted in. Best of luck with the install.
I’m going to replace the fridge in my 2020 Winnebago Voyage. It is the same as the one you replaced in your Grand Design. I would like to know how many mounting bolts and the location of them. Thank you.
We have the same issue with our refirg. we have identical rv as you & your wife. These refrig are not made for Florida or Texas which is where we are from. when they sell an rv they should tell you hey this type of refrig is not made for 1000 deg heat. (lol). I told my wife when we pull it out she can take a sledge hammer to the thing.(lol). I would have like to see how you leveled the new refrig., but we can figure that out.
I was having the same problem on our 2019 grand design reflection. Found the problem the divider on the fridge that separates the two doors the flap was not closing so you had to manually close the flap when you push the door closed. The refrigerator door flap was not closing between the divider doors. Problem solved refrigerator and freezer works perfect now!
OMG I can't believe so many people have such a hard time with their RV refrigerator. For those of you who don't want to actually learn something by reading the whole post then the simplest answer to their problem would have been a hughes autoformer. Its not the best solution but the simplest and quickest. For such a simple problem some of the mods and hoops I've seen people jump though trying to fix this are ridiculous.
I let you all in on a little secret I figured out 2 decades ago. 99.9% of all performance issues with RV refrigerators is low voltage, Like diabetes it's a silent killer, it's been slowly destroying RV's since they were first invented. It's a problem that affects many things in your RV from your air conditioner to your refrigerator to your converter. RV parks and camp grounds are notorious for low voltage issues, the wiring simply isn't up to the task of running all those 30 and 50 amp rigs with dual air, 3 tv's and so forth, the heaver it's Loaded down the lower the voltage sags. The problem is the heater element in your RV's refrigerator is a purely resistive wire wound element, so as the voltage drops so does the wattage of the element. The heater element in your RV refrigerator is similar to a light bulb, It's basically just a wire wound filament that gets hot when electricity flows through it. why is this important ? simple, did you ever notice how your car headlights dim as the voltage drops or the battery dies? well that's exactly what happens to the resistive heating element in your refrigerator as the voltage drops, thsi voltage drop could be caused by poor wiring and heavy loads at RV parks and camp grounds it can even be caused by using extension cords. or even caused by running your RV at near max electrical load
It's an ease thing to check, simply measure the AC voltage at the heater element while its under load, anything lower than 118 volts and you will start to see significant performance issues becouse your heater element is designed to produce its rated wattage at 120 volts not 118. Oh and since its a resistive load the wattage will decrease exponentially as the voltage decreases.
At 120 volts the element should produce about 250 watts worth of heat, at 118 volts it's now only producing about 220 watts of heat at 115 volts its now only producing about 190 watts of heat. So as you can see you lose a massive 60 watts of power when the voltage drops from 120 to 115 volts that equals a 24% drop in cooling capacity.
Don't take my word for it, plug your refrigerator into a kilowatt unit and take some measurements and you will se what I am saying. The simplest solution to this is to wire in a 10% buck boost transformer between your heating element and control board, I did this 20 years ago when I first figured out the problem and have done it with every RV I've owned ever since. I never have cooling problems, even on 110 degree days my fridge works fine and without all the crazy nonsense that some people go though like adding baffles and fans. Since the heater element is resistive you can leave the buck boost transformer wired in permanently. since it's restive a 120 Volt heater element can easily handle as much as 200 volts without damage it just gets hotter, In fact these are the same type of elements they use on pellet bbq's to light the pellet's. they will start to glow red hot if you pump enough voltage through them but don't worry 10% boost in voltage is just enough to over come any voltage sag you are seeing.
As you are correct, before putting in the residential fridge, we did check the wattage multi times. This is a common issue with the fridges in a slide with insufficient cooling. Plus, the wife is loving not having to defrost a freezer. I hope your response will help other people with fridge issue. Thanks for the comment hope you liked and subscribed.
Quick question. What is the width of your door? I am going to be taking mine out this week but I’m in a motorhome. My door is 24in wide. I want to make sure the old fridge will fit out. I actually ordered the same fridge you installed already.
I think the real problem is the unit was installed wrong. They lifted the fridge about 3 inches. This moved the heat exchanger above the vent opening. Cooling air could not flow completely through and make the turn out of the vent opening. Just moving the fridge down 3 inches, would greatly help to remove the heat.
The problem with these refrigerators is they create heat to MOVE heat..... Very stupid design. So when it gets hotter then the condenser outside there is little to no heat transfer. That combination with the CREATED heat just overwhelming causes it not to cool.
Thank you for this DIY video
I was about to waste even more money on my rv to get someone to do this for me. You are a life save. Keep the videos come and thanks again.
The industry is moving to 12v only now on big fridges
I did it!! Following your videos, I got rid of the horrible Dometic and installed the Hisense fridge!
Thank you so much for the great videos and being so awesome about responding to my questions. I have cross posted in several of the GD pages. Thank you, again!
🤗🥳🥳👍👍 You are going to L❤VE the new fridge! No more defrosting the freezer. No more fighting with it when it gets hot. We still can't get over how much more room the fridge has.
Man, that is quite the project! We have a residential fridge in our 5th wheel BUT it went out on us after less than 3 years. We had to take it out our back window! Thanks for showing us all the ins & out of the removal & how it was bolted in. Best of luck with the install.
Thanks. It was not that bad. Just so glad the fridge is gone.
Thanks for the video. I am looking forward to next week's conclusion.
Give you a hint we are loving the new fridge.😁
@@Upforthejourney SPOILERALERT
Very good video.
New sub from Facebook.
2019 GD 315 owner here on a seasonal site in Wisconsin.
Awesome! Thank you! We'll be in Wearns WI?
I’m going to replace the fridge in my 2020 Winnebago Voyage. It is the same as the one you replaced in your Grand Design. I would like to know how many mounting bolts and the location of them.
Thank you.
We have the same issue with our refirg. we have identical rv as you & your wife. These refrig are not made for Florida or Texas which is where we are from. when they sell an rv they should tell you hey this type of refrig is not made for 1000 deg heat. (lol). I told my wife when we pull it out she can take a sledge hammer to the thing.(lol). I would have like to see how you leveled the new refrig., but we can figure that out.
It had adjustable feet I think.
I was having the same problem on our 2019 grand design reflection. Found the problem the divider on the fridge that separates the two doors the flap was not closing so you had to manually close the flap when you push the door closed. The refrigerator door flap was not closing between the divider doors. Problem solved refrigerator and freezer works perfect now!
Good call.
Do you remember if yours was a Dometic RM 1350? Ours is 2018 311BHS and looks just like yours and says RM 1350. It died and we want one like you got.
We don't remember the model number. We just know we're happy to have it out!!!
Our 2019, 315 rlts is a RM1350. It will be leaving this week.
OMG I can't believe so many people have such a hard time with their RV refrigerator.
For those of you who don't want to actually learn something by reading the whole post then the simplest answer to their problem would have been a hughes autoformer. Its not the best solution but the simplest and quickest.
For such a simple problem some of the mods and hoops I've seen people jump though trying to fix this are ridiculous.
I let you all in on a little secret I figured out 2 decades ago. 99.9% of all performance issues with RV refrigerators is low voltage, Like diabetes it's a silent killer, it's been slowly destroying RV's since they were first invented.
It's a problem that affects many things in your RV from your air conditioner to your refrigerator to your converter.
RV parks and camp grounds are notorious for low voltage issues, the wiring simply isn't up to the task of running all those 30 and 50 amp rigs with dual air, 3 tv's and so forth, the heaver it's Loaded down the lower the voltage sags.
The problem is the heater element in your RV's refrigerator is a purely resistive wire wound element, so as the voltage drops so does the wattage of the element.
The heater element in your RV refrigerator is similar to a light bulb, It's basically just a wire wound filament that gets hot when electricity flows through it.
why is this important ? simple, did you ever notice how your car headlights dim as the voltage drops or the battery dies?
well that's exactly what happens to the resistive heating element in your refrigerator as the voltage drops, thsi voltage drop could be caused by poor wiring and heavy loads at RV parks and camp grounds it can even be caused by using extension cords. or even caused by running your RV at near max electrical load
It's an ease thing to check, simply measure the AC voltage at the heater element while its under load, anything lower than 118 volts and you will start to see significant performance issues becouse your heater element is designed to produce its rated wattage at 120 volts not 118.
Oh and since its a resistive load the wattage will decrease exponentially as the voltage decreases.
At 120 volts the element should produce about 250 watts worth of heat, at 118 volts it's now only producing about 220 watts of heat at 115 volts its now only producing about 190 watts of heat.
So as you can see you lose a massive 60 watts of power when the voltage drops from 120 to 115 volts that equals a 24% drop in cooling capacity.
Don't take my word for it, plug your refrigerator into a kilowatt unit and take some measurements and you will se what I am saying.
The simplest solution to this is to wire in a 10% buck boost transformer between your heating element and control board,
I did this 20 years ago when I first figured out the problem and have done it with every RV I've owned ever since. I never have cooling problems, even on 110 degree days my fridge works fine and without all the crazy nonsense that some people go though like adding baffles and fans.
Since the heater element is resistive you can leave the buck boost transformer wired in permanently. since it's restive a 120 Volt heater element can easily handle as much as 200 volts without damage it just gets hotter, In fact these are the same type of elements they use on pellet bbq's to light the pellet's. they will start to glow red hot if you pump enough voltage through them but don't worry 10% boost in voltage is just enough to over come any voltage sag you are seeing.
As you are correct, before putting in the residential fridge, we did check the wattage multi times. This is a common issue with the fridges in a slide with insufficient cooling. Plus, the wife is loving not having to defrost a freezer. I hope your response will help other people with fridge issue. Thanks for the comment hope you liked and subscribed.
Quick question. What is the width of your door? I am going to be taking mine out this week but I’m in a motorhome. My door is 24in wide. I want to make sure the old fridge will fit out. I actually ordered the same fridge you installed already.
We no longer have that RV
I have the 2019 Reflection 315rlts as you have. Man I hate the fridge lol… Fixin to change it out as well … thank you for the video ……
OUr pleasure, makes a huge difference
I did see both videos. I wish you showed more screw removals and where the were.
Sorry. Improv to film.
I think the real problem is the unit was installed wrong. They lifted the fridge about 3 inches. This moved the heat exchanger above the vent opening. Cooling air could not flow completely through and make the turn out of the vent opening. Just moving the fridge down 3 inches, would greatly help to remove the heat.
Any problems getting the new refrigerator in the door?
No. It was pretty easy to get it in. Just needed the right angles to get in. Just like getting the old one out.
Does the new fridge get enough ventilation to preform well?
Plenty, Never failed.
Nice...you're going like having residential fridge. And you're right..so not a one man job!
It's been amazing so far. Keeps cold on our 6 hr drive
@@Upforthejourney yup---we're spoiled already by ours!
@@Upforthejourneyhow does it do if you boondock for a few days.
The problem with these refrigerators is they create heat to MOVE heat..... Very stupid design. So when it gets hotter then the condenser outside there is little to no heat transfer. That combination with the CREATED heat just overwhelming causes it not to cool.
Yes.
Seems like you forgot to change it to electric.... You were using gasXD
I used both.
Hear nothing good about dometic fridges.
Yep, they are not that great.😁
Hate these fridges I’m pulling mine. But I’m going to sell it people will pay $500+ that one you could of got $1000 for.
You know it!