RV Refrigerator Troubleshooting: Testing a Cooling Unit

A common problem with RV refrigerators is owner’s running the refrigerator while the RV is uneven. This condition traps the heated liquid in pockets inside the cooling unit rather than allowing it to flow by gravity back to the boiler assembly. If the unit runs for a period of time in this condition, the liquid will start to flake and become blocked resulting in insufficient cooling even during level operation.

To verify a properly working RV refrigerator cooling unit, it is recommended to do a 24 hour hard test bypassing all other components such as the monitor panel, thermistor and eyebrow board.

Dave walks you through each step of this RV refrigerator troubleshooting process, demonstrating how to connect the unit to a 120 volt source and use a heat gauge to measure temperature throughout the entire system, from the lower coils to spots in front of and behind the evaporator fins. RV refrigerator troubleshooting experts suggest letting the cooling unit run for 24 hours to find blockages and get an accurate reading on the system’s efficiency. If the cooling unit isn’t running at it’s peak performance, there’s little point to moving on to cleaning the other components.