Adventure Location:
Decatur, Alabama
Date: July 20, 2024
Another nice day to start things off. Rain squalls in the forecast and they did show up when we got about a mile from the Castle. So we opened our little umbrella and headed for the Castle. We got lucky in that it was just a hard sprinkle all the way back so it was not too much mud to fight. It soon quit raining and that was all the rain for the day. We are not fans of walking in the rain no matter what that old song says.
The coloring we have lately been working on was declared finished this morning but when we took the photo to put in tonight's blog it was obvious the OFM needed to try again on some of those finishing touches. So we plan to be finished tomorrow.
What that little delay also precipitated was an inventory of colorings left to be done since we thought we were running out of new ones to color. After checking the stock waiting for our attention we came up with thirty pages waiting for our attention. Since each coloring takes us 2 to 3 months to do, it means we have five years minimum of pages waiting to be colored right now. Perhaps The OFM has plenty in reserve right now. Additionally there is about ten full paintings we also want to try our ability with. So The OFM needs to settle down on the art efforts and get busy. Maybe. At least now we know our real status on that situation.
So how about a tip on getting better performance from your RV refrigerators in the future. Years ago in the mid 70s a full timer desert rat in New Mexico advised the OFM that the RV fridges are less than the best in the world. When you open the door on upright refrigerators most of the cold air falls out of them and hot air replaces them. Then your fridge has to work hard for a couple of hours while the inside gets warm enough to let food get too warm for safe storage for a couple of hours. Here is what he recommended and we have been using since 1973.
Use empty closed containers to fill the refrigerator full of air that cannot fall out and have to be re-cooled to have the fridge at a safe temperature. We use our empty plastic storage containers to hold the cold air as much as we can. On our newest refrigerator the 2 liter soda bottles fit very well in the door shelves for the same purpose when appropriate. We hope you find this a good idea for your rig also. When you are not plugged in like when boon-docking it definitely makes a difference in our rig's LPG use.
Another problem when it is hot out is that hot, stagnant air accumulates behind the fridge (the part the outside hatch accesses). The fridge operates much more efficiently if this air van be kept moving through the cooling fins and up the "chimney", You can greatly assist this by adding a small, 12 volt computer cabinet fan back there pointed up the chimney. These fans are cheap from eBay or a computer store, mine gave me two used fans for free when I told him this trick. Just zap strap it in place and add a switch. 12 volts is available at the back of the fridge and the amount of electricity burned is negligible. You will notice the difference.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteCroft's suggestion is a good one. I put two 4 inch computer fans in my refrigerator "chimney" a couple of years ago, and it lowered the refrigerator temperature by 10° when those fans are running, the refrigerator will recover it's temperatures quicker, and it works when the refrigerator is running on propane or electric.
ReplyDeleteIt also helps to face the side of the RV with the refrigerator in it away from the sun, although that may not be possible in an RV Park.