Norcold fridge, heater, and altitude

Greetings. New to the forum. 4WC owner since 2005.

Any solutions to using Gas fridge and furnace at altitude? Norcold recommends not using at over 4500 ft and suburban furnace at 5500 ft. We often camp much, much higher. One time I couldn't even get the pilot to light at 4600 ft. I read something about "deration" in the manuals, but we camp in the desert, too.

thanks

Marc

I know from previous camping trips with my 5th wheel that camping at rocky national park, west entrance can get a little fun with propane items also. I woke up and did my usual hit the switch on the propane water heater. Laid back down and awoke to banging on the side of the camper. Went out to see what the problem was and noticed it was the water heater. It was trying to fire one last time and at that moment I opened the door to the water heater. Let me tell you the water heater can throw out a good fire ball. Needless to say I didn't have to worry about going back to sleep. The only way it would run is if I had the cover off. I read through the manuals and they mentioned that I needed to get a conversion kit for that high of elevation. I would imagine the fridges would be the same way.

hosse,
Welcome the forum.
We've used our fridge at 8,500 ft. without any ignition problems though controlling the temperature was a little tricky, frozen veggies etc. It does take a little patients to get the fridge to fire up. We've also fired and used the Atwood heater at 7,000 plus without any problems.

Hello Marc


Every once in a while I get customers that will tell me about experiences when the refrigerator is having a hard time staying lit at high altitudes, but it is usually really high altitudes and pretty rare (8000 ft. or more). I don't think the 5500 ft. altitude for the refrigerator is very accurate (a bit too conservitive).

Here is what one service shop told a customer out in Colorado. Maybe something to keep in mind if you are still experiencing this problem down the road ...

<< should there be any consistent problems with the fridge not staying lit at higher altitudes he says there is a simple fix (increasing the gas (propane) pressure to some 13psi from the factory's 11.5psi) that would probably solve the problem. >>


Here is another reply from a customer that lives up in Lake Tahoe area (7000 ft.), he just got his camper a couple months ago ...

<< As far as high elevations and the fridge, it worked flawlessly while camping at 10,000 feet up in the La Sals. One of the pictures I sent you with the Warner Lake forest sign in it, well the lake and campground are right behind me 100 yards, and that is at 9500 feet up. Camped a few very cold nights up there and not a problem. I never adjusted the gas pressure from the factory setting.

The outages I did have were while highway driving and either the pilot light got blown out by winds at highway driving and or semi trucks passing at highway speeds. Even then it was a once in awhile occurrence. I did stop a few times on high passes in Colorado and ate lunch, passes over 11,000 feet. Still no problems. On windy days highway driving I eventually would just turn it to battery, once I got where I was going then I would run it on gas. >>


Norcold has put out a service bulletin regarding some of their refrigerators.

Here is a link to the bulletin on their web site if you want to check it out ...

http://www.norcold.c...64/Default.aspx


My gut feeling on the refrigerator is that the wiring terminals are bad and should be replaced under Norcold's warranty. I would think that most any authorized Norcold service center could do this for you, but you might want to call em' to make sure and see how the process works ?

Here is a customer that was having (maybe) the same problem you are ...

[I]<< On the Norcold fridge (which wouldn't stay lit) it was another simple fix, changing out wire-end connectors in the circuit which controls the very sensitive millivolt switch which has to stay closed in order for the fridge to continue lit. He said there had been a Norcold "Service Bulletin" on this telling service people to change these because they rapidly oxidized and due to the tiny voltages involved this messes up the switch. Again he's done this many times.>>


Hope this helps


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Operating the refrigerator in Propane Gas mode:

When you operate the refrigerator on propane gas at altitudes higher than 5500 feet above sea level:

You may experience reduced cooling performance of the refrigerator.

You may experience burner outages.

To avoid these possible problems, Norcold recommends that you operate the refrigerator on AC when at altitudes higher than 5500 feet above sea level.

Wow, that'd rule out a norcold (if I wanted one). I camp frequently much higher. But it really shouldn't be that much of a problem. Aside from the people who live at high altitude, even the fire lookouts (at really high altitudes) all use propane with no problems. Only problem I"ve ever had with propane appliances is frozen valves.