Sully Sur Loire festival this weekend but fridge issue on gas

ManTheVan · May 21, 2022

I wonder if it might be some kind of airlock or loss of coolant in the system? If you’ve got a belle flamme and you’ve taken action to increase airflow, then it’s the only other possible cause?

suavecarve · May 21, 2022

Riverbankannie said:
Surely just doing that could not affect warranty especially as you have a written note from a Thetford service engineer.
In the festival programme, that poor executioner! How many times does he have to be tried? …..and if found guilty, which I bet he is, who does the deed!

I think wife more concerned it won't go back on.
Going to look for a wire drain cleaner later and see if I can pop it up through the peep hole

suavecarve · May 21, 2022

Ooooh
Just had a thought.
I have a 12 volt pump for inflating tyres.

If I were to shove that up the flue and turn it on giving a blast.

Anyone see any reason not to ?

Two on Tour · May 21, 2022

suavecarve said:
Ooooh
Just had a thought.
I have a 12 volt pump for inflating tyres.

If I were to shove that up the flue and turn it on giving a blast.

Anyone see any reason not to ?

Obviously make sure the f/f is totally switched off and try to cover the flame jet with a piece of cloth or card to stop any potential debris from landing on the jet and causing you yet more problems. I have an about an 1" diameter bottle brush on a length of stiff wire to get right down to the bottom of our flue.

Lenny HB · May 21, 2022

Have you filled up with gas recently as you could have got a dirty batch i.e. more oily residues in it than normal that will quickly soot up the chimney.

Lenny HB · May 21, 2022

Reallyretired said:
Thats a clue. Turning these fridges up above about 4 will stop the cooling altogether. Not logical Captain but thats what they do.
In hot weather turn them down, use a fan on the top vent if you have one, otherwise taking the top vent off altogether may help a bit.

I think thaty only applies to older fridges, all the fridge freezers we have had always get colder the higher the setting.

cmcardle75 · May 21, 2022

Really, you need to try it on 230V (or even 12V) to see if the problem lies on the gas/burner/flue side, or on the refrigeration side. If it doesn't work on 230V/12V, then no amount of cleaning flues will fix the gas side.

suavecarve · May 21, 2022

Lenny HB said:
Have you filled up with gas recently as you could have got a dirty batch i.e. more oily residues in it than normal that will quickly soot up the chimney.

Filled up after the issues.

suavecarve · May 21, 2022

cmcardle75 said:
Really, you need to try it on 230V (or even 12V) to see if the problem lies on the gas/burner/flue side, or on the refrigeration side. If it doesn't work on 230V/12V, then no amount of cleaning flues will fix the gas side.

12 volt yesterday for 4 hours and it started to freeze.
Can't do 240 as at festival.
Planning on finding somewhere Sunday night just to try it

cmcardle75 · May 21, 2022

suavecarve said:
12 volt yesterday for 4 hours and it started to freeze.
Can't do 240 as at festival.
Planning on finding somewhere Sunday night just to try it

Sounds like refrigeration side is working fine if it works on 12V, which is usually less powerful than 230V. It'll be a gas burner or flue problem.

suavecarve · May 21, 2022

cmcardle75 said:
Sounds like refrigeration side is working fine if it works on 12V, which is usually less powerful than 230V. It'll be a gas burner or flue problem.

We are nearly finished our 60 km round cycle to auchan at gien to get a bottle cleaner. !!!
We also thought that we parked under a tree about a week ago and immense amounts of blossom half filled our windscreen. Wondering if any floated through the vents. But none at the bottom vent.
15kms to go then we LL try Plan D

Riverbankannie · May 21, 2022

suavecarve said:
We are nearly finished our 60 km round cycle to auchan at gien to get a bottle cleaner. !!!
We also thought that we parked under a tree about a week ago and immense amounts of blossom half filled our windscreen. Wondering if any floated through the vents. But none at the bottom vent.
15kms to go then we LL try Plan D

I’m sure you didn’t need to go that far! I bet you can get anything here in town

suavecarve · May 21, 2022

Riverbankannie said:
I’m sure you didn’t need to go that far! I bet you can get anything here in town
View attachment 620714

Had the bright idea en route.
It's not the best if cycles there as you are quite away from la Loire and when on a map you think you're close you aren't.
Anyway, it didn't work. Flue is good.

Cunning plan is to return on Monday having found an electric source on Sunday to ensure it works on 240 volt and hopefully deliver it to serviceman on tuesday

maison · May 21, 2022

Let us know the outcome, please.

cmcardle75 · May 21, 2022

suavecarve said:
Had the bright idea en route.
It's not the best if cycles there as you are quite away from la Loire and when on a map you think you're close you aren't.
Anyway, it didn't work. Flue is good.

Cunning plan is to return on Monday having found an electric source on Sunday to ensure it works on 240 volt and hopefully deliver it to serviceman on tuesday

If it isn't the flue, often it is a blocked burner jet, or the flame is directed in slightly the wrong place.

suavecarve · May 21, 2022

cmcardle75 said:
If it isn't the flue, often it is a blocked burner jet, or the flame is directed in slightly the wrong place.

We are going to aim for Arras where there is some leccy tomorrow.

Will give further updates and solution

suavecarve · May 22, 2022

An update on the fridge scenario, we decided there was no point testing out the van in Arras when we could come home so we made it from Sully to home today.
The fridge has been on 12 volt all day.
At Sully, even just burning off the gas the freezer was +25 degrees and the fridge was +20.
Today after 10 hours or so of 12 volt we have frozen ice cubes and a thermometer reading of -5 in the freezer and +10 in the fridge (but it is cold on the metal bit)
Have just stuck it on 240 and it is very apparently working

Adriaadventure · May 23, 2022

suavecarve said:
We think there is some form of obstruction up there but wife won't let me take flue off as everything under warranty but will be suggesting this to our man in UK.

It' quite a long and wide-bore flue pipe and very unlikely to be blocked as it draws the heat up the pipe very effectively.
The burner flame has to be a roaring set of 5 inline burners and if you look though the observation panel the flame should be roaring and visibly seen to reach and be drawn up into the chimney pipe opening.
If the flame is only about 8 - 10 mm ( the blue part above the burner holes ) its not enough and will cause the fridge/freezer to not work.
From what you have said its odd-on that the burner jet is partially blocked and as the burner and jet are combined as a 'burner assembly' you cannot get at the jet to clean it.
A replacement is available on ebay and at some Mh/caravan dealers at around £25 -£30 and is easy to change. ( ensure you get the right part, think its a 5-hole, definitely not the 3-hole one )
After having had a partially blocked jet Its one of the very few spare parts I carry in the MH along with the right spanner sizes to undo the gas pipe unions to remove the burner assembly.
Edited to add :-
Just dug out my spare burner, its Thetford p/n623058 and fits the N3000/4000 tall fridge freezers.

suavecarve · May 23, 2022

Adriaadventure said:
It' quite a long and wide-bore flue pipe and very unlikely to be blocked as it draws the heat up the pipe very effectively.
The burner flame has to be a roaring set of 5 inline burners and if you look though the observation panel the flame should be roaring and visibly seen to reach and be drawn up into the chimney pipe opening.
If the flame is only about 8 - 10 mm ( the blue part above the burner holes ) its not enough and will cause the fridge/freezer to not work.
From what you have said its odd-on that the burner jet is partially blocked and as the burner and jet are combined as a 'burner assembly' you cannot get at the jet to clean it.
A replacement is available on ebay and at some Mh/caravan dealers at around £25 -£30 and is easy to change. ( ensure you get the right part, think its a 5-hole, definitely not the 3-hole one )
After having had a partially blocked jet Its one of the very few spare parts I carry in the MH along with the right spanner sizes to undo the gas pipe unions to remove the burner assembly.
Edited to add :-
Just dug out my spare burner, its Thetford p/n623058 and fits the N3000/4000 tall fridge freezers.

Thanks for that, we dont think it is the jet of flames, the technicians saw the flame and described it as "Beautiful".
Just waiting to hear from the service people having sent them an email this morning with all the temperatures on the different sources.

suavecarve · May 23, 2022

June 1st booked in for diagnostics

VXman · May 23, 2022

Interesting thread. We have the same issue with a 'new' N4000. If you search you will find a similar scenario with mine going back to last July.

Ours was new in March 2021 and in July we camped off grid at Silverstone and that's when we noticed the fridge would not cool down on Gas. Electric is really good but does not work on gas. In fact on electric it can freeze in the bottom of the fridge section if you have it too high so it's definitely something on the gas side.

Not sure if it ever worked because prior to that we were on EHU most of the time bar an odd night so I'm not sure we would have noticed a problem.

It's been back to the dealers 3 times, I had a Thetford technician look at it and replaced various bits in Spain. The dealer got a Thetford technician to look at it and they ordered some more bits - still no joy. To be clear it work well on Electric and the flame is good and strong but for some unfathomable reason it doesn't get cold on gas. In fact after a while it gets warmer!

On ours the gas burner is constantly on. I assume if it worked properly at some point when temperature comes down the gas would switch off.

The Thetford guy in Spain did contact Spanish HQ and they said there is a 'spiral' in the chimney which distributes the warm air from the flame upwards and some were manufactured without it. I did tell the dealer this but I'm not sure he took note.

The Wino said:
We had to do that to ours a few times but that was a different fault. If there's a proper flame and clear flue I can't see why it wouldn't work if it works on ehu.

Exactly!

We found we could not get any Thetford technicians to look at it in the UK. They are mostly dealers and if you didn't buy it from them they are not interested. Some said they would charge £100 to look at it and others said if we went there for a hab/damp check they would look at it. This felt wrong as it is under a 3 year warranty. I even rang Thetford HQ and they just said 'go back to the dealer'. Problem is the dealer is not a Thetford technician.

Anyway - wind forward nearly a year without a functioning fridge and this week we are due to drop the van in for a new replacement fridge as clearly they cannot find a fault.

We managed 2 months in France and Spain without a gas fridge. We had to do a lot more EHU sites than we would have liked but with ice blocks and a cool bag we managed to do up to 3 nights off grid but it was a hassle.

Hope you don't have the length of time and hassle that we have. Not impressed with Thetford at all!

suavecarve · May 23, 2022

VXman said:
Interesting thread. We have the same issue with a 'new' N4000. If you search you will find a similar scenario with mine going back to last July.

Ours was new in March 2021 and in July we camped off grid at Silverstone and that's when we noticed the fridge would not cool down on Gas. Electric is really good but does not work on gas. In fact on electric it can freeze in the bottom of the fridge section if you have it too high so it's definitely something on the gas side.

Not sure if it ever worked because prior to that we were on EHU most of the time bar an odd night so I'm not sure we would have noticed a problem.

It's been back to the dealers 3 times, I had a Thetford technician look at it and replaced various bits in Spain. The dealer got a Thetford technician to look at it and they ordered some more bits - still no joy. To be clear it work well on Electric and the flame is good and strong but for some unfathomable reason it doesn't get cold on gas. In fact after a while it gets warmer!

On ours the gas burner is constantly on. I assume if it worked properly at some point when temperature comes down the gas would switch off.

The Thetford guy in Spain did contact Spanish HQ and they said there is a 'spiral' in the chimney which distributes the warm air from the flame upwards and some were manufactured without it. I did tell the dealer this but I'm not sure he took note.

Exactly!

We found we could not get any Thetford technicians to look at it in the UK. They are mostly dealers and if you didn't buy it from them they are not interested. Some said they would charge £100 to look at it and others said if we went there for a hab/damp check they would look at it. This felt wrong as it is under a 3 year warranty. I even rang Thetford HQ and they just said 'go back to the dealer'. Problem is the dealer is not a Thetford technician.

Anyway - wind forward nearly a year without a functioning fridge and this week we are due to drop the van in for a new replacement fridge as clearly they cannot find a fault.

We managed 2 months in France and Spain without a gas fridge. We had to do a lot more EHU sites than we would have liked but with ice blocks and a cool bag we managed to do up to 3 nights off grid but it was a hassle.

Hope you don't have the length of time and hassle that we have. Not impressed with Thetford at all!

I need to write "Excellent" but dont mean your suffering.
This would tie in exactly with what the technician said in France.
We have been wracking our brains and gone back through our postings to see when we had electric, when we had travelling days and when we were on gas. It is entirely possible that we hadnt noticed the fridge was not working on gas as we get it to temperature on 240 at home and then with travelling days and electric days and having a 10 day jaunt in Belgium we assumed it was working on those days we used gas. Similarly on this holiday, travelling and electric days and lack of opening the fridge may have given us the false impression that gas was working (on the basis the flame was good) and hence, racking our brains, we turned up the gas thinking it was too hot to work so just up the gas.

I have copied your reply and put in the comments about there being a problem between the lower vent and the top vent (where the chimney is) from the french technician, which makes perfect sense and forwarded to the servicemen for consideration
I will let the dealer know what is going on at this moment, but still in the hands of the technicians at Thetford service station
With the van being new, no gas was on board when we got it

VXman · May 23, 2022

suavecarve said:
I will let the dealer know what is going on at this moment, but still in the hands of the technicians at Thetford service station
With the van being new, no gas was on board when we got it

So which Thetford Service Centre have you managed to get to look at it? As I said - I rang maybe 10 and none would look at it.

suavecarve · May 23, 2022

VXman said:
So which Thetford Service Centre have you managed to get to look at it? As I said - I rang maybe 10 and none would look at it.

I went onto the thetford site and selected "service point" and the nearest one to me is in Chichester called Reliancecsm.

Spoke to Chris there on Friday (from France) he asked me to take temperatures, which we did, sent them off this morning and got phone call back at 1200 hrs for it to be booked in for diagnostics on 1st June (earliest they can do)

Adriaadventure · May 23, 2022

suavecarve said:
Thanks for that, we dont think it is the jet of flames, the technicians saw the flame and described it as "Beautiful".
Just waiting to hear from the service people having sent them an email this morning with all the temperatures on the different sources.

Here's a photo of the flame on my N4170 Fridge Freezer, its easy to see yourself by removing the bottom outside grill cover and swinging the small inspection cover on the burner bottom cover out of the way.
My Freezer hovers around -12 deg C to -15 deg C and the Fridge between 8 deg and 3 deg half way up the inside of the door.
If set on setting 4 I have had items on the top shelf near the cooling fins freeze. On setting 3 it seems to be at its best setting.
The fridge temp seems very dependant on how much its loaded up i.e not as cold when its full of food and also not as cold when the grills at the back are iced up.
The Freezer is also dependant on the temperature of the fridge as its noticeable that if the fridge does not work as hard i.e in cold weather that the freezer temperature is not as cold.
There is a mention in the manual that the freezer may not keep food frozen in cold ambient temperatures !
The N3000 and N4000 FF's use up to1 litre ( half kg ) of gas per day in warm ambient temperatures. Slightly less if you have fans fitted.
Photo was taken close up to the inspection cover pointing slightly upwards so it shows the 'chimney' pipe opening.

walburga · May 23, 2022

I serviced the fridges in all our motorhomes, and they've always had the swirl plate down the flue, hanging from the top of the flue tube with a bit of bent wire. The height of this plate within the flue must be critical as it catches the heat, gets very hot, and transfers this heat to the gas / liquid coolant stuff that circulates and creates the cooling effect. If that heat isn't caught at the right position, it goes straight up the flue not doing its job.

Allen

suavecarve · May 23, 2022

Adriaadventure said:
Here's a photo of the flame on my N4170 Fridge Freezer, its easy to see yourself by removing the bottom outside grill cover and swinging the small inspection cover on the burner bottom cover out of the way.
My Freezer hovers around -12 deg C to -15 deg C and the Fridge between 8 deg and 3 deg half way up the inside of the door.
If set on setting 4 I have had items on the top shelf near the cooling fins freeze. On setting 3 it seems to be at its best setting.
The fridge temp seems very dependant on how much its loaded up i.e not as cold when its full of food and also not as cold when the grills at the back are iced up.
The Freezer is also dependant on the temperature of the fridge as its noticeable that if the fridge does not work as hard i.e in cold weather that the freezer temperature is not as cold.
There is a mention in the manual that the freezer may not keep food frozen in cold ambient temperatures !
The N3000 and N4000 FF's use up to1 litre ( half kg ) of gas per day in warm ambient temperatures. Slightly less if you have fans fitted.
Photo was taken close up to the inspection cover pointing slightly upwards so it shows the 'chimney' pipe opening.

Thats the flame we have, we just dont have the heat transferring to the fridge/freezer

Lenny HB · May 23, 2022

suavecarve said:
I went onto the thetford site and selected "service point" and the nearest one to me is in Chichester called Reliancecsm.

Spoke to Chris there on Friday (from France) he asked me to take temperatures, which we did, sent them off this morning and got phone call back at 1200 hrs for it to be booked in for diagnostics on 1st June (earliest they can do)

Reliance are a service centre they are not dealers and they are very good.

VXman · May 24, 2022

suavecarve said:
I went onto the thetford site and selected "service point" and the nearest one to me is in Chichester called Reliancecsm.

Spoke to Chris there on Friday (from France) he asked me to take temperatures, which we did, sent them off this morning and got phone call back at 1200 hrs for it to be booked in for diagnostics on 1st June (earliest they can do)

You were very lucky to have a helpful response.

suavecarve · May 24, 2022

We have just reallocated a 240 volt plug to 240 volt 3 pin connection that goes in the motorhome from the Father in Law.
Just tested it out and we get 240 volts from the inverter to the fridge, so on the presumption they cant fix it in a fortnight, we will go on the next holiday with this and use a mixture of normal 110/240 our adapted from battery 240 and 12 volt whilst travelling electricity.
I did look at getting generator, which would have a use for daughter in winter (lives seriously out in the sticks) but it didnt quite make sense

Sully Sur Loire festival this weekend but fridge issue on gas

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