Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 23:21:18 -0500
Reply-To: "Robert A. Alexander" <satcong@VOL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: "Robert A. Alexander" <satcong@VOL.COM>
Subject: WESTFALIA REFRIGERATOR BURPING & OTHER IRRATIONAL FEARS!
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Volks - Jeez, what ever happened to the good old American pioneering
spirit of facing the unknown, unfazed by bashful detractors???
I managed to contact Don Staie, my
AC/Heating/Cooling/Refrigeration/December-Water-Skiing Guru this evening
and ran some of the List members' criticisms by him about his
suggestions about "burping" RV refrigerators. I was mistaken in my
earlier post. Don's been here in TN for twenty years before retiring.
Worked in the profession only for twenty-five years in MN! Still has
that weird foreign accent, though.
His suggestion for Westfalia owners and others who have these types of
refrigerators is to remove them every Spring and invert them for 24
hours and then reinstall them, fire them up and go on about your
business. He points out that it is NOT a "correct all" for other
problems, but that when one is having weird problems with their frig.
and nothing else works this is his first suggestion.
His second suggestion is to go to the URL
http://www.rvmobile.com/welcome.htm and gain a "crash-course" education
in the theory, operation, maintenance and repair of these ammonia
beasts!
His third suggestion is that anyone who thinks one can damage an A/C or
refrigeration unit via turning it upside down has NO concept of what
they are talking about. The one "qualifier" he offers concerns
compressor driven units. Once inverted, he suggests righting them and
leaving them alone for 24 hours to allow the oil in the system to settle
back to where it's happy. He authorized me to post on the Net that
anyone who claims that simply inverting any cooling unit resulted in any
type of damage is full of Beaver Dung! I assume they must have a lot of
beavers in MN!
Don tells me that it is tempting to think of this neat mixture of
ammonia/water/sodium chromate as being a homogeneous mixture, but he
says even after sitting there for a few months, it is far from being a
"homogeneous" mixture. Things separate. That's the idea behind
"burping".
Like I said before, I've never had one of these beasts. Don's
interested in my forwarding the more timid posts which are received,
though. He tells me he'll participate on the List for $30/hr for those
who want decent advice about their refrigeration problems. He, also,
invited me to go water-skiing with him Christmas day this year on
Chickamagua Lake!!!
BOB - WA4RRN
'85GL
http://www.impeachment.org
