Recap:
Read about my refrigerator issues in the Day One post!
Safety First:
Day two did not provide to be any better for my fridge. The freezer stayed cool fine, but the majority of the refrigerator needed to be tossed. The temperature instability and general lack of chill in the fridge made me super nervous. I ended up tossing a bunch of food. What’s the point of traveling all this way and getting sick on something preventable. It was incredibly frustrating, but necessary.
I was in a town on Monday where I was able to restock a bit.
Once at camp, I was plugged into standard 30amp power supply, so the fridge was able to chill properly again. A few days later, I did some more research about my specific refrigerator (Norcold N8V – manual). I was able to find the model specifics on the inside of the refrigerator (below).
The Solution:
During my research, I found the manual (linked above) on the Norcold website. It was a great place to start and I downloaded a PDF version of the manual to my iPad, so I have it in the future. I also Googled RV refrigerators that automatically switch from electric to propane and back. This provided me with many articles and videos of folks having a similar issue to me. The biggest piece of advice was to force the switch when or if the automatic switchover fails.
I was able to play around with the fridge, and found out how to reliably switch it over to propane. Essentially, I have to remove the exterior panel and unplug the refrigerator. This triggers the propane to light and the fridge will run off the propane.
In the photos above, you will see a plug just to the left of the yellow stickers. The pilot light for the propane is all the way to the right. While this solution can be frustrating and this switch over should happen automatically, I am happy I found out how I can ensure it is working properly. This process is really only going to be used during my driving days between campsites while boondocking.
Recommendation:
The photos I have taken of and around the camper, like the specs for the fridge, are put into a folder on my phone labels ‘Camper’. This helps me to quickly reference specifics about the camper that I may need in the future without having to be physically at the camper to find the information.
Update:
Since this issue occurred, I have since driven to South Dakota and I did not have any refrigerator issues using this method. So, the solution is working!