In this episode of The Smart RVer Podcast, Eric Stark talks about a growing trend in today’s RV industry: factory 12-volt compressor refrigerators.

These refrigerators offer some real advantages. They cool faster than many older RV refrigerator designs, they fit the move toward all-electric RVs, and they eliminate propane from the cooling side of the equation. But Eric explains why cooling performance alone isn't enough when you’re considering long-term ownership.

Modern OEM 12V refrigerators from brands like Dometic, Furrion, and Norcold are electronically managed systems. Manufacturer and service materials show these units use control panels, control boards, and, in some cases, compressor drive boards. They also depend heavily on proper 12-volt power, stable voltage, good wiring, and clean grounds.

That means when a refrigerator stops cooling, the problem may not be simple. It could be the refrigerator itself, or it could be a power issue, a voltage-drop problem, a connection issue, or a control-related fault. That added complexity can affect repair cost, downtime, and how difficult the problem is to diagnose on the road.

Eric also discusses why warranty length matters. Current documentation for these product lines shows that warranty coverage is often around 1 year, which should be part of the buying conversation for a high-cost RV appliance.

This episode is not about attacking brands. It’s about helping RVers ask smarter questions:

• How is the refrigerator diagnosed when it quits?
• How dependent is it on proprietary controls or boards?
• How sensitive is it to voltage drop and wiring issues?
• How easy is it to get parts?
• What happens if it fails after the warranty expires?

If you’re shopping for an RV with a 12V compressor refrigerator, or thinking about replacing one, this episode will help you think beyond the showroom pitch and focus on what really matters over time.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

Here is a link to the 2 RV Accessory Catalogs - 2026 RV Catalogs

Dutchaire 10 CU FT 12 Volt Compressor RV Refrigerator - Replaces Most 8 Cu FT RV Refrigerators

PICQUIC RV Screwdriver - RV Driver w/ Bits

Contact Us - Call, Text, Video, Email

Our Online Resources:

The Smart Rver YouTube Channel - Check Out Our No-Nonsense YouTube Videos

Sunpro Mfg - RV Sunshade, Windshield Covers & Slide Out Awning Fabrics

Hot Boat Ropes - Marine Cordage- Anchor Lines, Dock Lines, Tow Lines, etc.

Top Rated Podcast - The Smart RVer Podcast Website

In staying on the road. Today we're going to talk about 12 volt RV compressor style refrigerators. They're great for cooling, but what about longevity?

And then the quick tips. We're going to discuss springtime RV maintenance and the checklist that's available on the smartrver.com website.

And in RV envy, when your RV awning tears, do you use awning repair tape, duct tape, gorilla tape, or do you replace the fabric? I'm Eric Stark. Welcome to the Smart rver podcast. If you'd rather be camping than sitting a repair shop, you're in the right place.

Every episode, I'll walk you through practical DIY maintenance and repairs that keep you on the road. Welcome back, Smart RVers. Today is episode 199. So let's just dig right into this.

Now we're going to talk about 12 volt RV compressor style refrigerators and how they're great for cooling, but what about the longevity? And that's what comes up quite a bit. And what we're talking about though is 12 volt compressor style refrigerators.

So we're not talking about gas and 110, gas, 110 and 12 volt, the absorption style refrigerators. We're not talking about 110 volt compressor style refrigerators, although some of the application might apply here.

We are talking about buying a new RV and it has a 12 volt compressor style refrigerator in it. Or, or you're upgrading from a 12 volt one that has failed to a new one or gas absorption to 12 volt. And there's a process for each one of these.

Some of it's very similar, some of it's quite different. So I want to make sure that we're on the same page on that. No confusion here. 12 volt compressor style RV refrigerators.

So these brands like Dometic, Furion, Norcold and now General Electric, they've become very common in RVs. And I understand why. They cool down very quickly. They work very well, they're quiet. Well, gas ones are quiet too.

And they fit in the direction the way RVs are going today into that whole electronic scene, which is okay, you know, that's the way they're going. So this fits right in. But I do want to throw this out in the beginning and I'll probably say it again later.

If you have a 12 volt style compressor refrigerator, you're going to need solar panels to keep the batteries charged. If you're going off grid camping, if you're plugged into shore power, you're fine.

But if you're not plugged into shore power, the refrigerator will drain down the batteries. And the typical refrigerator today is using about 100amp hours in a 24 hour period.

Now it's going to vary, some a little bit more, some are a little bit less, but that gives you an idea. So basically that's a battery a day, so you need to have a way to keep that charged up.

Okay, so what we're going to discuss though is kind of the long term repairability of these. What happens later on after it's out of warranty, you know, which brand do you want to get? What are the problems you might face?

And that's important to know that before you ever buy one.

Now, if you already have an RV and it has one in there, sooner or later you're probably going to come to this set of questions asking, well, what do I do now? My refrigerator failed, you know, and it's important that we kind of get ahead of this now because there will be that day where it fails.

Hopefully it's much farther down the road than much sooner, but you're going to get there. So this is not going to be the episode where I'm telling you how bad these refrigerators are and they're all just horrible. That isn't going to be it.

Wouldn't it be fair? Because really the jury's still out on it.

So what we want to talk today is about, you know, go beyond just how well it cools, but what happens when it doesn't? What happens when that refrigerator stops working? Because that's what we don't talk about when we're buying one or when we're buying that new rv.

We're just overwhelmed with SRV is so cool. I gotta have it, man. Bring that sucker home, throw in the food and let's go.

We don't worry about all the other problems we're gonna have a month later, a year later, whatever it might be. So this makes sense with the 12 volt refrigerators though.

You know, the world's going to this all electric trend and the RV industry is following right long. So it's becoming so common that you're probably not going to have a choice on it, at least a large choice. And that's fine.

You know, if you go look at RVs and every floor plan or model you're looking at has that 12 volt refrigerator in it, that's all right. You're not going to buy something that you'll regret unless you just get a bad rv, which that can happen.

You know, but hey, that's a roll of the dice, right?

So when you walk into the new RV and you see this refrigerator in there and it looks so nice and it's, you know, nice and shiny stainless steel doors or fake stain steel doors, you know, oh, this looks good. Looks like what's in my house. This is sweet. So it's got to be good, you know. And that's what we start to really look at.

We don't think about down the road because we're all caught up in that moment. And believe me, that salesman, when he hears your wife or you say something about how nice that refrigerator is, oh man, he's going to pounce.

Oh, this refrigerator, it'll make your whole life better. Your children, they won't ever need braces. He's going to go on and tell you so much nonsense about it and he's going to suck you in.

Next thing you know, you bought this RV and you're driving it home going, what? What on earth just happened? All we did was look at the refrigerator and we own an RV now, so be careful. All right, guys.

And you might say it doesn't really matter. This is what we got to get. This is what's coming in them. And you're probably right there in some ways.

And I personally like the 12 volt refrigerators because they have more storage space in them.

A smaller area, you know, fits in the typical 5 cubic or a 5 foot refrigerator, which is usually about 8 cubic fit in an RV you can get a 10 cubic foot in that same spot because it's a compressor style. So they're just made differently, which is nice. More food, right? Because we gotta have food when we go out camping.

But the things are important that keep coming up is the power supply, the 12 volt wiring. Is the wiring correct? And the manufacturers, you know, they push this hard.

Not just the manufacturers, RVs, but Dometic, Furrion, Norcold, General Electric, the wiring has to be right. 10 gauge can be the smallest. It can be, but 8 gauge is better.

And sometimes the manufacturers will go in with a lighter wire or it's lighter wire where you can't see it and heavier wire where it's visible.

We've heard about these horror stories and the manufacturer of the refrigerator is going to say, no, you got to have that same size wire all the way through. We prefer no slices, no connections, no nothing. We want a nice clean circuit. So that's really important.

And you can't always tell that that's going to be there when you Buy the new rv. So hopefully they did it right at the factory.

And maybe if you call the factory, they can give you some reassurances on that and make sure that that's what you're getting. Because power is the problem with these. The 12 volt power, not just the 12 volt itself, but the wiring, the circuit boards.

When there's fluctuations in the power, it can affect the circuit board and the compressor and that can cause failures. So we have to be aware of that. And these new refrigerators, the four brands I've mentioned, they are circuit board electronic driven.

There's another brand called dutchair that is not made the same way. Their parts are friendlier, a bigger compressor. And this isn't a sales pitch for Dutch Air. This is just about 12 volts.

But I'm giving you some information here. I'll talk about Dutch Air a little bit later on as we get through here.

But these circuit boards and these other electronics can make the diagnosis a little more complicated. Even though the manufacturers produce the manuals and they'll kind of walk you through it guides sometimes it's kind of a gray area.

You know, talking to Norcold recently about a refrigerator, they couldn't answer the question whether the compressor is bad or not and what ohm readings should be. And now that might have just been the person that we were talking to, but it left it in the dark.

And so, you know, we had to spend more time making sure that diagnosis was absolutely correct and spot on because they were being vague about it. And that vagueness could end up being refrigerators being sold when they don't need to be.

Maybe it is a circuit board, there's something wrong with between the wiring and the circuit board or the bad connection. And a technician just takes it like, oh, well it must be the compressor then. And hopefully that doesn't happen.

But we know that it can and hopefully it doesn't happen to you. So that's what we're trying to avoid, is making you guys smarter on these 12 volt compressor refrigerators as well.

So when the 12 volt refrigerator stops cooling, the problem could be one of many things. It could be the refrigerator itself, it could be a control issue, it could be the power supply going to the refrigerator.

The voltage could be dropping someplace in the system. And you know, when you're plugged into shore power, I mean, I hear this constantly, well, I'm plugged into shore power, there can't be any problems.

And I've talked about this in previous podcast episodes just recently, there can Be problems. Being plugged into shore power is not a guarantee that your converter isn't having problems. So you have to rule out the other problems as well.

But it also could be a connection issue. And that could be the connector going right onto the back of the compressor. You know, recently we had a furion one.

We had to put some insulation behind the connector and the circuit board to push it onto the compressor and hold it into place because it wouldn't stay on the way it should from the factory. It could be a circuit board issue. The board could just fail.

And these brands of refrigerators, the four Dometic, Norcold, General Electric and Furrion, their compressor and circuit boards all look identical. They say they're not, but they certainly look the same. The backs of the refrigerators all look the same as well.

I'm not saying you can swap a Norcold board with a Dometic one. That could be a problem. There could be some issues, but nonetheless less you know those. That's where the issues can be.

Now I do hear reports from owners of RVs who've had these refrigerators and they failed in after three years, five years.

And it's generally the, or the compressor is the big problem when a circuit board fails, you know, that's a 2 to $400 repair, depending on the refrigerator, what it takes to remove it. And keep in mind these refrigerators, for the most part, they have to come out of the RV or at least into the living area of the RV to work on them.

You can't do much while it's in the, in its space, which isn't a big deal to pull these out as long as they put a long wire on there and didn't make it real difficult. But it's just more work, one more step. You know, there are reports about the compressors going bad under 10 years.

So it puts you out of the one year warranty, which we'll talk about in a moment.

But it's under a 10 year lifespan, which 10 years kind of seems to be a number for these things that it should exceed that or get to that maybe exceed it. So if the compressor fails, that kind of sucks. But we don't know that they're only lasting three to five years.

Dometic, Norcold, Furrion, General Electric, they all have something different to say on that. It's all no, we're not seeing those types of problems and we have to take them at face value for what they're saying.

But also if you look on the Internet, do a deep dive into it. You're not going to find that kind of conversation either or in their documentation.

But even RVers, you know, we hear about it, we hear it from Rv technicians, from RVers, but it doesn't mean that's the norm across the country. Maybe it's our region, it's hard to say. And maybe there's a little confusion on how old the RV refrigerator is.

Maybe there's an exaggeration, oh, this thing's only 5 years old when it's really 10 years old. But the person's frustrated so we have to take that with a grain of salt.

So we don't want to look at these refrigerators that they're just these horrible things, because they aren't horrible, they're actually a really nice refrigerator, as I've talked about.

Now, that one year warranty that I just mentioned a moment ago, we need to discuss that for a second because that is a different side of the conversation.

In an RV which, you know, you might use it for six months out of the year and during that six months it might just be a few trips. So you're really not even getting a lot of use out of it. And it's four or five years old and it fails. Yeah, that sucks.

And we know it because a lot of money, very little usage. Part of the thing is to use it. Make sure you know you're using this refrigerator. To be honest with you, compressors like to be used anyway.

So Even if your RV's at home, you might want to run it once a month for a day or two just to get some life into it. The same with your air conditioner. They like to be used. Don't worry about wearing it out.

You're actually going to make it last longer by using it even if it's sitting there empty and you're not really using the rv. But that one year warranty, that is pretty short.

You know, RV air conditioners have a two year warranty, toilets have two and three year warranties, but a refrigerator has a one year warranty, so that's kind of scary. Now JC, or excuse me, dutchair, they have a two year warranty and they're very helpful.

These guys answer the phone, they'll walk you through the problems if you happen to have a problem. Super friendly. And their compressors are bigger so it makes them better, they work less.

They don't have to work as hard to cool down your RV or excuse me, the refrigerator. So that's good. Now it doesn't mean that a Dutch Air refrigerator won't have problems. Anything can have problems when there's electronics involved.

But a Dutch Air is closer to what our parents, grandparents talked about when they had refrigerators or deep freezes that lasted 30 years, 40 years. That's what we're talking about here with the Dutch Air. You're going to get a long life out of it.

10 years for a Dometic or you know, the top four, the main four in the RV industry, 10 years would probably be okay, probably be okay. But when you think about how little you used it during that 10 years, that doesn't sound so good. But that just might be what it is.

So if you have your RV for 10 years, maybe that's. And you get 10 years out of it, hey, you've done good. If you get 12, awesome.

You know that 10 year mark, I don't know where that's come, where that comes from, but it seems to be out there.

When you're buying a refrigerator, you know, upgrading from your gas electric or your 12 volt compressor, it failed, or you're buying a new RV, you know, knowing this information is going to help you get into it before there's any surprises. You know, you're going to know what to expect and it doesn't mean you should go out on every trip, you know, on pins and needles. Is it going to work?

Is it going to work this time? Is it going to work? But having some knowledge about it, what makes it work is very important.

And most of the manufacturers, they have pretty good documentation that can help you.

So if you are out camping, what to do if you're, if your refrigerator stops working or maybe when you get there, you go to turn it on, nothing happens. You know, you can do a hard reset on them and there's instructions that walk you through it.

It'll take, you know, a half an hour to do probably, but it might solve your problem. It clears out the circuit board and gets everything back on track.

And it's kind of a pain to do, but it's not impossible to do, especially for do it yourselfer. Even if you're not a good do it yourselfer, you can still do this. It's pretty Easy.

So that is good information to know, knowing where the fuse is on it, you know, is there a fuse behind it? Is it in front where it's accessible? You know, maybe even taking the refrigerator out one day. Yeah, I know it sounds pretty crazy, right?

But pulling it out from the its space, have someone help you and set it on the floor of the rv, see how long the wire is, make sure it's gonna be long enough to set it out there, see, make sure the connections are good. Just do a little preemptive, you know, repair here. If the connections are weak, redo them. Maybe the crimps aren't good.

And sometimes that happens as well. So you can kind of check some things and get familiar with it. And they're not hard to take out.

It's just, you know, four, six, eight screws depending on the model. They're really not that difficult and they weigh about 100 pounds if it's, you know, a double door top on bottom.

So that gives you an idea of the simplicity in some ways about these, but also gives you an idea what to look for when it comes to maintaining it and so forth. All right, so you know, you get some basic understanding of how it works, how the warranties work, what to look for, what not to look for, I guess.

But the questions you need to ask, how is this going to perform down the road for you? Is it going to fill the needs you need?

If you know a gas refrigerator is what you want and that really fits your RVing style, then that's what you want. They're still available.

But if the 12 volt fits your RV lifestyle, you're dry camping, you know, you need that off grid support and you really want the space for the extra food.

You want something that's going to cool down better, faster and work better in the hotter temperatures than the 12 volt refrigerator is the way to go. So when you're buying one, you know, ask about the warranty, ask how it would be fit, how it could be repaired. Does it have to go to a dealership?

Is it do it yourself friendly, which I'm telling you they are right now. So you probably don't need to ask that question. Learn about the refrigerator you're going to buy. You can get a schematic on it.

You can see how the circuit board works. There's a fan on the back of them. If that fan stops working, generally that'll be the problem if the refrigerator isn't working.

So there's some basic little things that you can figure out on your own before you ever have to take it to a dealership. And remember a refrigerator, when it fails, it's not just the cost of the repair.

If you're out camping and your RV or the refrigerator is filled with food, you could have two or three hundred dollars worth of food. Well, today with everything going, it might be $10,000 worth of food. Who knows? It can be a lot of money that you end up just having to throw away.

So being able to diagnose it yourself can make a big difference. Especially if you're out on the road. You know, you can save the trip by fixing the refrigerator.

Or you might realize that, hey, we can't save the refrigerator right now, let's just pack it in and go home. Or we need to get this part, whatever you do. So think about it that way.

And there's a lot to think about buying a refrigerator, whether it's a 12 volt one or a gas and electric because it's a big expense. But when you ask some questions up front, you go into it with your eyes open. You're going to have a better experience overall.

And now sometimes I get asked what refrigerator would I want, what would I recommend?

I like the Dutch air refrigerators right now because they're simple electronics in them, they're easier to repair, they're going to be less expensive to repair. They just don't have all the fancy stuff that the other four brand have. They're simpler, but they're a nice looking refrigerator.

And for most people you'll never know the difference. It's going in your rv. Who cares if it has little extra lights on it that tell you what this is doing or what that's doing?

It works or it doesn't, right? And there's basic checks you can do to figure out what it actually needs.

So I hope this helps you think through the issues of buying a 12 volt refrigerator or buying an RV with one. Just looking at it differently, not just how cool it is now when you're looking at it, oh awesome.

But down the road, how to repair it, what you might need and just know so you're prepared as you go into this. Remember, it's an rv, so there's always going to be some problems, but it's how you're able to deal with them that makes a difference.

So if you have a 12 volt refrigerator, I'd like to know what brand you have, how has it performed, has it been trouble free or have you had any repair issues? So these real world experiences help all of us learn More about the refrigerators.

All right, let's go on to quick tips and talk about the Springtime RV maintenance checklist. It's available on the smartrver.com website.

Now if you go to the website right on the homepage, you scroll down and there's this checklist, Click on the link, this awesome image of an RV guy standing there with his checklist, going through it and it's springtime. Now is the time to do this. You know, some of these items you want to check out, check throughout the season.

But start off right so you not get to your first campsite and wow, look at all these problems we got. Right? I forgot to check that. I didn't check this. So start on the roof. Check the roof and all the seals up there.

Then go down the outside of the RV and check the exterior seals. And you know, you don't have to get into some detailed, you know, process here, eyeball it, what do you got going on the roof?

Generally it's pretty obvious when there's problems. And if you've been maintaining your roof, you're going to be even more in tune with it. So keep it simple, don't get too carried away.

And then if you have a rubber roof, remember, lap sealant is your friend. That's how you're going to repair it. Unless you have something like a broken vent lid or air conditioning gasket, that's bad.

But check it all out, make sure you don't have any problems there. And look at the inside too.

If your RV's been sitting in cold, wet climate, you go inside, that's going to give you a little bit of a clue on if you've had any roof leaks or not. And now check your tires and suspension on the rv. Whether it's a trailer or motorhome doesn't matter.

Just, you know, look at your tires on the trailer. Your life of the tires is very important. Motorhomes are as well, but you don't want to exceed that five year lifespan of a trailer tire.

You can try it, but generally it ends up not being good with a blowout on the road. So look at them. Make sure there's not sun checks, no tread separation, which is pretty common.

Make sure there's nothing broken, suspension, a bolt missing, things starting to wear out. So just give it a nice little inspection.

So you're gonna have to get underneath the RV or on the side, you know, crawl underneath there and take a look and get on the ground to look at the tires too. I know there's some People that just kind of look at the sidewall, you got to get on there, look at that tread is.

It's going to say a lot different than the sidewall will in most cases. And don't forget about your battery.

You've had it stored all wintertime, so you want to make sure it's charged up and it's going to hold a charge before you ever go on that first trip. And of course you're going to be de winterizing as well. So make sure the plumbing in the water system is good.

There's no leaks after you de winterize, which we've gone through that on our podcast and I think even YouTube video, we've talked about this. So you want to get all that antifreeze out of there. Get water in the system and check for leaks throughout the rv.

And make sure there's no plumbing leaks whatsoever. And check your appliances, make sure they work. You know, your smoke detector, fire extinguishers, they can be forgotten about.

Make sure they haven't expired and make sure your doors and windows open. Okay. And the vents are working properly. And that is the final walk through. Check out the entire rv.

Just walk around it, look at wherever you need to, inside, outside. Then you're going to do your normal stuff. Bring some things in, put them away. As you're doing that kind of look where you're putting them.

Make sure there's no signs of water leaks or mice problems or who knows what. So just spend a little extra time getting it, you know, put together for that first springtime trip. So you're problem free.

Then throughout the season, you can actually use the same checklist for the springtime throughout the entire season. Just stay up on top of the maintenance so you don't have any problems. And now this entire checklist has been brought to us by wholesale warranties.

That sound like an advertising or what? So we're an affiliate for wholesale warranties and you've heard me talk about them. They are a great company. Their RV extended warranties, awesome.

They're transparent. So before you ever spend a dime on this warranty, you will know exactly what you're paying for, you'll know exactly what you're getting.

No surprises whatsoever. And that's important because RV extended warranties can be chock full of surprises. I'm not saying every company is, but you need to be aware of that.

So these guys are very good at what they do and that's why we recommend them. And you can call and talk to them. They got great customer service. Now let's go on to RV envy. Let's talk about RV awnings.

When your RV awning tears, what do you use on it to repair it? Duct tape, Gorilla tape, Awning repair tape?

Well, depending on the tear, you might use any one of the three, but let's get into that a little bit deeper and what you really shouldn't be using on your RV awning when it does repair. So this could be your patio awning fabric, it could be your slide out awning fabric. It's not going to make a difference. They're both vinyl.

They're the same way. If your fabric is getting old and it's starting to delaminate, you know it's coming off in pieces.

There's no tape that's going to fix that or really fix it. Just replace the fabric. That's the best thing to do.

And do it on your terms so you're not driving down the road and that fabric finally tears, the awning goes flying out or something happens to it, or you're sitting there camping, the awning's out and it finally tears. That last bit of thread that's holding it together breaks, falls down and clunks you on the head or ruins the arms. We don't want that.

So if you're starting to see this, you know, delamination, major tears, replace the fabric.

Now, if you have a good fabric and it's still soft and pliable, or maybe it's not delaminating and you get a tear in it somehow, use awning repair tape. That's the best. It's clear, it sticks to the fabric.

You can put a piece on the top, a piece underneath, and kind of sandwich the tear in between, if you will. It is so much cleaner and easier to use than duct tape or gorilla tape.

And if you're in a bind and you got to use a duct tape type product, do not go on the awning rail, do not go up the side of the rv. Keep it on the fabric and don't put silicone or a sealant or paint something on there and get it on the awning rail or anywhere else.

Keep it on the fabric. And I say that because it's, it happens more often than not where the tapes and sealants are put on the awning rail, the side of the rv.

Not only is it messy, it makes it harder to replace the fabric because all that has to be cut out of the awning rail and it can be very difficult to do. And then that just leaves a mess on the side of the rv. Especially duct tape. You know, it. It doesn't come off like you think.

And Gorilla tape is even worse. Great product for what it's designed for, but not for this. So stick with the awning repair tape if you're going to tape it.

And keep it nice and clean. You will appreciate it when the RV technician puts on that new fabric. And you don't have all this ugly, goopy stuff on the side of your rv.

Believe me, it looks much better without it. All right, so that brings us to the end of the show today, guys. So I want to give you a final reminder here to sign up for our newsletter.

We're going to send out reminders. I mean, excuse me, emails a couple times a month. No spam. We're not going to clog up your inbox. We're going to keep it nice and simple.

All right, that's going to do it for today's episode of the Smart rver podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Eric Stark, and if you'd rather be camping than sitting in a repair shop, you're in the right place.

Until next time, take care of the little things and enjoy the trip.