Fridge condensate overflow problem
We own a 2018 Swift Conqueror 580 and almost since day one we have had random water leak events with water appearing underneath the fridge. There was never any sign of water coming from the fridge door and as there's no plumbing on that side of the van it wasn't that. The van went back to the supplier but they didn't find anything wrong and eventually 12 months down the line I think we've finally worked out what is happening.
As with all fridges the caravan fridge produces water (condensate) when it runs through it's cooling cycle. This condensate drains out of the fridge into a receptacle at the back of the fridge where it gets heated and evaporates. Our problem was that the condensate wasn't evaporating sufficiently quickly so it built up and eventually overflowed inside the van.
The cause ? When the van door opens and swings back on to the catch it almost completely covers the fridge vents. When we fit an awning any air circulation is further slowed as the vents are on the same side as the awning. On a warm day, the air in the awning gets warm and in extreme cases like we had recently it can be quite humid. Once the condensate builds up beyond a certain level (say a third full) it becomes a unresolvable condition for the fridge as there isn't sufficient heat or air circulation to evaporate the water quickly enough.
Warm conditions make the fridge work harder and produce more condensate and so the spiral continues. There is rarely a problem in cold weather or if there's no awning and the van door remains closed.
There's an obvious fix,,, to run a longer condensate pipe from the fridge straight out though the bottom of the van but my supplier says he can't do that for me because he would be invalidating my warranty - impasse ! !
I've written to Swift with the problem and await their response.
Comments
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We have it with our 2008 Dometic fridge, given the right atmospheric conditions, long stay breaks and probably too frequent opening. Then for months no problem. Very easily cured in our case tuck the tube into a plastic much larger capacity French milk container, the stiffness of the tube keeping it upright.
Then empty this periodically.
If like ours, you will find the bottom vent frame has a pipe clip so a tube extension could be added and clipped into this, thus draining externally. Never got round to bothering.
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Picture of mine. The drain pipe as is, is not long enough to be routed to the external drain clip. If I did that I would make a joint, say from a plastic straw and add on a bit more tube, rather than delve in to change the tube. But used the old milk bottle for 11 years so unlikely to bother now.
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Don’t understand your dealer
at the back of the fridge you should have a gas drop vent.
This is needed to reinsure that in the event of a gas leak, the gas being heavier than air, vents to underside of the van.
surely he can add a join and run the pipe to the outside.
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