Home Forums Truck Camper Adventure Forum Wind and Refer flame

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    • #42525
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Two weekends ago we were crossing to and from the Bonneville Salt Flats and the wind was truly powerful, and on our return trip seemingly of a Gail Force category – most extreme wind I’d ever driven wind… By the time we got to Winnemucca the wife noticed the refer had stopped cooling, then I noticed that the LPG tank gauge had not dropped but a small fraction (note, it’s an ‘in-tank’ mechanical float gauge type) though the flame was active…I could only surmise from this (due to the uber low gas consumed) that because of the uber high winds the flame had been regularly going out then seemingly self re-igniting…Though we’ve had occasional cooling issues in previous years, we’d never suspected a wind-caused nuance was a gremlin in the entire past 11 yrs of camping…When I blew on the flame at the port opening I could easily hear the flame struggling to withstand the pressure – Dang, why hadn’t I ever noticed this before – could it be that the wind had been occasionally extinguishing the flame, and the flame self-re-igniting??… I don’t know the answer to this..

      Either way, in advance of our recent round-trip to the Bay Area, I fashioned and installed a aluminum baffle to loosely surround the Norcold burner. Temps in the Sacto area where quite hot, approaching 100deg/f where refer performance is normally (historically) just marginal at best. The apparent end of this two day freeway speeds excursion was that the refer stayed cooler than ever, and items on the top shelf and door were nearly frozen!!

      Just passing this along – I’ve become a hero – the wife has now erased a new refer from her ‘dream sheet’ – lol

    • #42561
      ardvark
      Participant

      Glad to hear you found a solution. Although it seems illogical, truck campers have a much greater issue with flame-out than other types of RVs. In our almost new Northstar the bow wave of an approaching tractor-trailer on a narrow tow lane, is a challenge for our Dometic, although it is not a common problem for us. 🙂

      Ardvark

      Steve and Andra
      2012 F350 6.2 gasser SRW LB
      Fab Fours front and rear in case we run into a rhino
      2019 Northstar Laredo SC

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