Well, after a short trip from MOT the other day, I made the trip up to Lonoke, AR and Chris and Elka Lang's home. I had asked Chris if he would help me put this new fridge in and without hesitation, he said, let's do this. My quest was to remove the original Dometic and install the Samsung RF18. Chris and Elka are special people and Chris has some special talents to say the least. His help and expertise made this job doable!
Getting ready to remove the old fridge, Ron Clark showed up as well and immediately jumped in to assist. Many thanks to Ron as well. We did take the old side by side out the front door with great care. A short drive the next day with the coach and with the help of the Lowe's associates in Jacksonville, AR, we got the new fridge sitting up in the living room floor and off we went back to Chris's.
With Chris's engineering , we now have a shiny new fridge in our coach. I have some finishing up to do, but here are a few photos of the job. We are blessed to have such great people on this forum who are willing to use their expertise, wisdom and camaraderie to assist those of us who are in need of their help! On a side note, wife is very happy as well!
Photo 1: old Dometic; #2, frame work from bottom doors still in place; #3, frame work removed an6d 3/4 inch plywood installed;
#4, new Samsung in livingroom; #5, Chris hard at it; #6, new fridge. We moved fridge to far right side to clear the plumbing behind the fridge and installed a 2x6 to fill in the gap. Walnut strip to finish it off and then some trim around the top and sides.
Great job and excellent co-op work by Forum Members! You will enjoy the new fridge!
I hope you saved the walnut panels off the old fridge, and the small cabinet doors from below the fridge. Those pieces can often be reused for other projects. We used the doors from below our old fridge to cover the hole when we removed the OEM ice maker. By simply flipping one of them over they fit the space perfectly. Added some drawers to the open space for additional storage.
Congratulations on a job well done. We consider our Samsung RF18 to be an ourstanding improvement and I think you will too!
You'll need a "door keeper" for the fridge to avoid catastrophes. Thread below has several different ideas:
Samsung Freezer latching system idea (https://www.foreforums.com/index.php?topic=22939)
We secure our refrigerator doors with a strip of Velcro wrapped tightly around both handles. We secure our freezer door with a lock designed to secure patio doors. We purchased ours at Home Depot, while Lowes and other locations have similar latches. We mounted the latch to the side of the freezer door with VHB tape (don't want to drill into the refrigerator or freezer and disturb the insulation) and then screwed the other portion of the latch into the wood beside the freezer door. This solution has worked perfectly for a few thousand miles.
I sold the old fridge and they wanted the panels. I did save the bottom doors.
Thank you, yes, I am in the process of making an item to secure the doors now. Great idea on securing your fridge as well!
Just don't let your wife see what John H did with that 6 inches of space....slide out vertical pantry. I actually installed one in my house and it's great! And here you thought you were done......
Nice job Chris and Joe and Ron. We did our Samsung five years ago. 40,000 miles later, perfect. I added a full height pantry to the right of ours, 22" deep, designed to fit some of our odd stuff and kitchen things.
What she doesn't miss won't hurt her! lol
Thanks Roger! Ron and I were the laborers and Chris was the master mechanic! lol
This is our door lock when on the road. Easy to use, a simple board with felt like material on each side.
We use the same basic design...works great! In the 5 years since we started using it,
never had a door or freezer drawer pop open.
We got our idea from Bob & Faith Rozek (Wattalife54). Thanks Guys!
Samsung Freezer latching system idea (https://www.foreforums.com/index.php?topic=22939.msg184830#msg184830)
I made one out of one of the DW's Teflon cutting boards. Non marring.
I understand from posters here that the rf-18 runs around 125 amp hours per 24 hours use?
We have a new 4 door 22 cu ft Samsung in our house and I works well. Black stainless steel.
The counter depth 3 door looks good if you do have the amp hours for it.
I wonder how many amp hours our Dometic chest refer/freezer runs under the coach per 24 hours?
Anyone checked it consumption?
No one can measure how much your freezer uses but you. Easy to do if you want to.
The newest (much more efficient) Dometic Freezer Amazon.com: Dometic CF80 12v Electric Powered Cooler, Fridge Freezer: Automotive (https://www.amazon.com/Dometic-Electric-Powered-Cooler-Freezer/dp/B075J5TL77/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_263_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=1MN34MAVYJDCP9G2TPFC)
It is 80 liters (2.8 cu ft) and uses 24 amp hrs/day. Scale it up to an 18 cu ft size and that is 155 amp hrs/day based on size. 23% more power use per cu ft than the Samsung.
Nice job on the fridge install, juicesqueezer, and friends. Looks great. Really appreciate your sharing, especially since a similar project is in our future.