Fridge on wrong side?
Hi all. Having taken delivery of our new ‘van in May, we are now ensconced on site in Wales. However, having put the awning up I suddenly realised that the fridge exhaust is into the awning!! I have never known this before or at least I can’t remember it with any of my other caravans. It is a concern as we always use gas to power the fridge as we are always offgrid. C02?? Anyone else have this concern? Your comments would be most welcome.
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The real worry would be CO carbon monoxide not CO2 dioxide, and this would only be there if the burner was burning dirtily. Sooty would be a warning sign, or yellow flashes in any visible flame.
Then the awning will have quite a lot of air leaks that dilution levels are going to be very low.
I doubt there is a reason for any concern. My present van has the fridge air vents into the awning.
To help it cool in the summer I part open the awning sides to get air flowing through the awning, but to cool things, not any hang up about monoxide.
Place a monoxide alarm in the awning if anyone is lingering out there and worried.
When I started we had gas mantel lighting inside and we survived
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Our old Cotswold has the fridge vents into the awning. We have managed to survive the last 22 years of ownership safely. That includes using it on gas as well. You’ll be fine Merve.
Only issue we ever had with a fridge was one that lost the coolant. Boy did it stink, just like rotten eggs. You wouldn’t have survived long in awning with this. We just sourced and replaced fridge on return. Still going strong.....
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our fridge has always been on the awning side for the last two caravans ..
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Sorry - my mistake - that’s what I meant- CO! Thanks Ocsid- We have no occupants in the awning at the moment but if we had, it would be our grandkids hence my concern. We have a spare CO alarm and I that had crossed my mind. This year, keeping the awning cool is no problem as most of us can testify!🤣🤣. Awnings are fairly well ventilated but better safe than sorry!
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Not very often. We used to have friends over to stay whilst in Cornwall, and we did reciprocal visits, using airbeds in awning. If my sister came to stay, being a two berth one would overnight in awning. Never had any issues at all, but our awning wasn’t draught proof. To be honest, I don’t think it ever occurred to us. We often slept with top door of van open as well (into awning) if it was a really hot Summer down there, we did this, and windows open on a regular basis.
We were never sure what caused fridge coolant to vent off, possibly something flying up off road, and at first we thought we had picked up a chemical spillage, as we had stopped off at a loch side, and had parked close to a nearby tanker. When we completed our journey to North Ledaig, the awful smell was still there, and of course the fridge wouldn't work. Being us, we just made sure it didn’t get inside van, and carried on with our holiday. OH put in a new fridge on our return.
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We have many times had our grandson sleep in the "Tall" annex of our Magnum, which is zipped in to be effectively an integral part of the awning.
Like "TTDA" we typically sleep hot summer nights with the caravan's door wide open into the awning, in our case the whole door as we have not the stable type.
The production of the deadly carbon monoxide does not occur in the normal clean burn, it needs a fault to partially burn. Unfortunately, the peep hole to view the flame is no longer a feature of my current fridge, but I feel you would soon sense if it was burning incorrectly. The flame can be checked directly in mine if I remove the lower cover and burner shield to do a "test" run.
The stench we get when the fridge dumps its gas is ammonia and very evident if you are anywhere near. My experience is of this occurring due to rusting from the outside in, of the steel tube that houses the fluid,
It happened due to the "flux" at a pipe joint not being adequately washed off pre painting during manufacture giving a very localised corrosion point, though some ten years on. On the current van I looked for this and used a rust inhibitor on joints where again rusting was occurring, just to help prevent that very expensive replacement.
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My swift has the fridge on the awning side, its the only caravan I've had that does and personally think its a stupid place to fit one.
I place my caravan with no awning with the door facing the south for the sun, which doesn't help the fridge to cool.
I also find the vents ugly I have the pointless tall fridge that takes away worktop space, and get to see them every time I use the door.
The door open also part covers the vents, again reducing fridge performance.
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Rather than where the designers think they should go I think they go where they will fit which means the nearside in many models. CO is a product of burning the gas and as most of us are on hook ups it is not a problem for people using electric.
On sites where there is no hook up including rallies though gas may be used. In those cases there is an element of risk but it depends on the use of gas by the fridge, size and outside temperature being the regulator of this and the size and of the awning and how airtight it is but most are far from this.
I have never seen any reports of a problem though, even on the hotter sites in Europe and the gas useage of a fridge is far lower than for heating and cooking, so I have to conclude that the risk is theoretical rather than real. People would only be sleeping in a closed awning at night when the temperature is lower which means less gas for cooling which will be another factor.
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Thanks to all who have contributed to this. We normally use a Magnum porch awning but do have a full awning when needed. Perhaps I am being over sensitive as I am sure the fridge gives out very little CO during normal operation. I was under the impression that CO is produced whether the appliance is functioning correctly or not?? However, as wildwood says, there has never been a report of CO poisoning due to a fridge outlet in the awning. Let’s hope, for our sakes there never is- the poo would certainly hit the ventilator if ever there is! Can you imagine........I think I will still put a CO alarm in there when the grandkids are sleeping in it-!
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