How badly did I screw up?

[Jessie]

I brought my AS home to prep for a trip and have it parked on the street. It is not level and I turned on the fridge about 24 hours ago forgetting about it not being level. It is very cold where I am right now and I don't have the furnace running, so I am unable to tell if the fridge was cooling or not because everything is cold. As soon as I remembered I turned off the fridge.

Say worst case scenario, it was not cooling because of the leveling for about 24 hours. In the amount of time, could the fridge be a goner? I have the two door Dometic that was standard on the 2015 25' International. Thanks in advance, I feel like such an idiot.

[dennis3751]

I think if you can stand up and walk in the trailer you'll be fine. It takes a real steep tilt to affect newer fridges.
Dennis

[Jessie]

Whew! Thanks Dennis, that is a relief.

[centennialman]

Jessie, you should be fine. If you are going to be using your Airstream in the cold weather, the contents will stay cold while you are in transit. If you are staying stationary and just testing the fridge, level up the trailer and give it a shot again.

[m.hony]

It has to be pretty bad out of level for the fridge not to work.
I have never run into a situation where the fridge wouldn't work due to being unlevel.

[dower.bill]

I am pretty sure that (a) the advice in the above answers is going to keep you out of trouble, and (b) when the unit is that cold, the refrigeration mechanism does not even turn on, as the inside of the fridge is cold enough. So you may have not actually even tested the 'moderate tilt is still okay' hypothesis.

Stay cool.

[BoscoMN]

This site had a video and write-up on how these refrigerators operate. I like electronic circuits and gadgets but I did not feel the need to buy one of these to protect my appliance and Airstream - especially given my wife pulls out the 6" level every time we park as she cannot cotton to any noticeable inclination in the Airstream.

https://www.arprv.com/dometic-fridge-how-it-works.php

Here is a video showing a refrigerator being installed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8islVGB_h0c

[Jacob D]

Originally Posted by Jessie

I brought my AS home to prep for a trip and have it parked on the street. It is not level and I turned on the fridge about 24 hours ago forgetting about it not being level. It is very cold where I am right now and I don't have the furnace running, so I am unable to tell if the fridge was cooling or not because everything is cold. As soon as I remembered I turned off the fridge.

Say worst case scenario, it was not cooling because of the leveling for about 24 hours. In the amount of time, could the fridge be a goner? I have the two door Dometic that was standard on the 2015 25' International. Thanks in advance, I feel like such an idiot.

I have heard that newer units are less subject to damage from unlevel operation than older ones like mine. For your sake I hope that is true.

Unless the manufacturers have come up with a cut off of some sort that will prevent the unit from operating out of level, it will run that way. The problem is that during part of the cooling cycle the unlevel condition causes one of the coils to not drain refrigerant properly. Crystals form in that coil partially blocking coolant flow in the system cutting down on efficiency. Eventually, the system will simply quit cooling when enough crystallization occurs. This crystallization process is irreversible I understand, and the unit can only be repaired by replacing the affected part of the system.

The safest bet is never operate the reefer out of level. My unit is 50 years old and has never been operated out of level for more than 15 or 20 minutes. It may quit tomorrow but not from being out of level.