The hot stays hot and the cold stays cold...how do it know?

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The road to my own personal hell however, is paved with Dometic refrigerator circuit boards and cooling elements, additionally it seems to parallel HWY 52 and end up in Santee, California.

For months now our fridge has been prone to fits. It likes to stop working sporadically, and like a giant, evil Cyclops it stares at us from its centrally located "CHECK" light. This problem was addressed by us in Durango not more than ten days ago. However, the admitted $100 "stab in the dark" the repair guys took there has proven grossly inadequate.

As best as we lay persons can surmise, our fridge needs $1100 worth of repairs. Cost of a new fridge $850. So this is simple, we have buy a new fridge. It sucks, it's bad timing and in our travel economy it is akin to 21 days on the road. But when life throws you lemons you make nicely refrigerated lemonade right??? Of course not.

See it seems that when camper manufactures build a camper, or as we learned today even high end Class A RVs, they build the inside first. Then they put on jams and doors that are too small to fit the installed appliances through. Our fridge is 24" at its narrowest point, our door is 20.5". You do the math- not good is it.

Resolution? Buy a new fridge, totally gut new fridge, then re-build new fridge inside of camper. Nice huh? Don't forget that this will take time and labor to do. Cost of labor $85/ hour.

I realize this is a bit of a rant and I do try not to complain on here, because really, what on earth do I have to complain about. Mainly I post this as an FYI. If anyone should be reading along and thinking "I'd like to do what they are doing" then I offer this advice. When you visit your local RV dealer, bring along a tape measure.

Thanks go out to the following folks; Bob and Mike at Double-D RV. Rob, Lenny and Rob's wife (sorry I didn't catch your name) at Howell's RV Appliance Repair. And especially Wyn, a very nice man who was having his RV repaired and invited us to his house for a full hook-up and a place to call home while we await repairs. Yet again we are astounded by the kindness of others.