Dometic fridge heating element?

[TravlinMan]

Hi folks.

It was brought up in another thread that maybe our newer dometics pull more 12v power than necessary on account of a mysterious heating element.... I have looked at the wiring diagram for my unit and it does indeed show a heating element for 120v and then another that just says 'heating cable'. Assume this is 12v? Anyone know the details on this? What's it heating? And is it necessary? If it's heatin the ammonia that's one thing but if it's heating my door strip, I wonder why....?



I gotta say I really hate this fridge.

[AstroBruce]

It's heating the door seal to keep it from sweating. Disconnect it if you like.

Bruce

[TravlinMan]

Thank you Bruce, this is very helpful info to those of us that care about power consumption. I have never experienced door sweat on previous trailer fridges. I wonder if I could put a switch on it and flip it on in the event it sweats but leave it off to save power....

This is very interesting. It would be great to reduce the draw from the fridge.

Thank you.