Monday, Mar 07, 2011 at 01:26
G'day Garytee, I have a Jayco 2001 Outback Finch and spent just under 3 months over in WA in heat between 30-45c and even hotter at times. I have a 3-way Dometic also (as
well as a 60lt Waeco) and run it on gas when power is not available. I had one gas bottle 9kg, and a 2kg, backup bottle just in case. I would say that during that 3 months, I had the gas hooked up at the very least, 6 weeks, and that is being conservative, and the rest of the time it was powered. I never, (repeat) never, had to refill that gas bottle or change it over and it still has almost one third of a gas contents left in the bottle. There are a few things that you need to do in order to stop the heat from entering your fridge. The very first thing is to
check that the door rubbers are sealing properly. If not, then you may need to adjust the hinges on the door, or replace the seals if they are squashed or damaged. If the door needs adjustment, ensure that when it is closed that it does not overly squash the seal. Before hooking up the gas or loading up the fridge and heading off somewhere, hook up power to the van and run the fridge on power for a day or two and
check that cold air is not escaping around the seal, and if all is fine,then load up the fridge with food etc, at least a day before you head off to let everything get fairly cold, ensuring all possible space is used up. (plastic bottles of water if necessary, as this acts like an ice box and retains the cold temperature). I used my fridge settings on ' 2' all the time whilst on gas and the fridge was still starting to get to the point of freezing, but was not using much gas to cool it. Avoid opening and closing all the time, as this lets in heat and uses gas to cool back down. Park the van in a shaded area when camping, with the fridge area away from the afternoon sun and heat. If the freezer compartment is iced up,(badly) then defrost it. If it continues to do this then you have a leaking seal, which needs fixing, or your temperature control knob is cranked up too high. To
check your gas bottle, pour boiling water down the side of your bottle. The gas level will quickly show after a few seconds of waiting as it will form condensation from the base of the bottle up to the top of the gas. Hope this has been of some use to you, cheers. PS. Forgot to mention, I did not use the gas cooktop but instead used portable cookers with cannister gas except for a couple of times to boil the kettle. This will be your main usage of gas, the inbuilt stove/gas cooktops.
AnswerID:
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