Fridge winter covers

Fisherman

Fisherman

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Can anyone tell me if two winter fridge covers are required. Or does only one suffice. I assume if it’s one it would be positioned behind the lower vent. Cheers
 
If you are not using van cover both,if you are using leave them open as cool air will use less gas to cool as outside temp is lower.
 
Trev, thetford state

When you are going to use the refrigerator with an outside temperature below 6C, install a suitable winter cover.
This cover will protect your refrigerator against too cold air and makes sure the refrigerator will still perform optimally.

But they don’t state which vent to cover. Now I reckon it’s the lower one. Or are both covered.
 
I've a pair of these came with the van for top an bottom but they don't totally close of the openings theres one slot on each always open so always air circulating
 
POI Admin said:
I have never found these covers to be of benefit. I have tried them at close to freezing temperatures and found that they stopped the fridge from cooling effectively.

Give them a miss ...
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Only tried them once and noticed frozen food in freezer started to thaw so I have never used them since.
Visit northern Scotland in winter and have never had a problem not using them regardless of how cold it was.
 
molly 2 said:
One good thing about winter covers is they keep a lot of cold draughts out , especially when the wind is howling ,
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There shouldn't be any cold draughts. Your fridge should be sealed in. Mine certainly is, with masses of silicone. Otherwise you risk CO getting inside.

Tried modifying my standard vents for winter, gaffer tape inside to block off most of the lower one, some high-temp aluminium tape at the top. Saw no benefit. Nor any downside. I suppose in a howling gale they might serve a purpose to keep the back of the fridge hot.

Either way, no need to buy them, if I chose to I would just cut out a couple of bits of ally sheet, or whatever, and cable-tie them inside the standard vents.

Much more useful in summer, was to fit a couple of 12V computer fans inside the top vent blowing out, with a switch to connect them in either series or parallel. Just cable-tied inside the top vent. That made a huge difference in hot weather, series connection was all that was ever needed, minuscule current draw and silent. Cost under £10.
 
Without fridge vent covers we get a howling gale coming through above our fridge & guess whose side of the bed is closest!
 
Sharon the Cat said:
Without fridge vent covers we get a howling gale coming through above our fridge & guess whose side of the bed is closest!
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OMG. No need to worry about burglars gassing you in the night, sounds as if your fridge might do that too if you run it on gas.

And the draught is coming from above the fridge, where the combustion products rise, near the bed ? Oh dear.

If you only ever use hookup I suppose your safe enough.

Fixing that should be your top priority, gas fridges must be sealed so the exhaust cannot enter the vehicle. As for a big enough leak to cause a noticeable draught, that shows that your fridge is very poorly installed.
 
Sharpie said:
OMG. No need to worry about burglars gassing you in the night, sounds as if your fridge might do that too if you run it on gas.

And the draught is coming from above the fridge, where the combustion products rise, near the bed ? Oh dear.

If you only ever use hookup I suppose your safe enough.

Fixing that should be your top priority, gas fridges must be sealed so the exhaust cannot enter the vehicle. As for a big enough leak to cause a noticeable draught, that shows that your fridge is very poorly installed.
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We have a CO alarm very close to the fridge, it's never gone off & yes it is in date & we had a hab service a couple of weeks ago.
 
st3v3 said:
If draughts can get from the fridge vent to inside your van, so can the combustion gasses - doesn't sound right! Mine was sealed.
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Have you ever seen the size of the gas flame. Best practise of course if it vents to exterior,
but really the chances of anything significant getting back in through the main vents and into
the van interior due to non existence of shielding is miniscule.
Sealing the back of the fridge from the hab area is a for a different problem they're there primarily to safely vent
unburnt gas or leaking gas to atmosphere and to circulate cooling air.
Domestic gas fridges don't vent to the outside in most instances, usually straight into the kitchen
and they're often somewhat larger than a M/H fridge so a larger flame. Sure the space ie a house
or flat has a bigger volume than a M/H but the principle is the same.
 
Sure CO is not usually a problem, after all we use gas cookers safely, and in a properly vented fridge I'd expect all the combustion products to waft out of the top vent under normal circumstances, even if the back wasn't perfectly sealed from the interior.

Plus the exhaust from LPG (or natural gas) flames contains very little CO when working correctly. They only start to kick out the stuff when combustion is incomplete due to a fault.

As you say, they only have a small flame (mine burns I think 25g of gas/24h on full). It is a Dometic, and as said has a drop vent inside the van, but that's in case of a leak in the LPG pipework, valves etc, not for CO.

CO is virtually the same density as air, when slightly warmer it rises, slightly cooler it sinks, placement of detectors depends on circumstances. For most domestic use, up near the ceiling is the usual recommendation, so that's where mine is.

So I m probably being alarmist, my apologies.

Absorption fridges need to run quite warm at the back to work well, this is where winter vents serve a purpose, reducing cold airflow.

In my installation I found they made no difference, it may be quite different for others.
 
We too get a draft coming in around the fridge and also have a detector above the fridge and never had a problem,
I do travel with the vent covers on if the weather is heavy rain, so that it cuts down the amount of rain going through the vents, I also fit them back on when parked up at home and when I wash it
 
I'm sure Sharpie that you are aware of the "chimney effect". On many Dometic M/H installations
there is hardly any distance between the cool inlet air lower vent and the high level warm outlet
vent, that is negligible chimney effect. I think this is why some campers are disappointed with
their fridge performance, they probably need the vent fan on permanently except maybe when
outside temps are lower than inside the fridge!
My own Dometic is high level mounted, but instead of a conventional lower vent I took 2 large dia.
tubes from fridge floor level straight down to vent through the van floor, this gives over 1.5m of chimney
affect. Additionally the absence of a lower vent means the fridge boiler burner etc is protected from
blown sand and dust something it used to suffer from in a previous van.
 
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