A Change for Ignoring the Barking Dogs

While it has been fun and interesting doing my blog on Blogger, I’ve decided to make a change. Since Blogger is a part of the Google community of features and programs, and Google seems to be wanting to do a lot of “data mining” and collecting data on individuals and businesses, I’ve decided to move Ignoring the Barking Dogs over to WordPress.

While I will lose the familiar look that was here, at least for now, and especially with the comments about pioneers taking arrows being on the front page, it will also be interesting to experiment on WordPress to see what effects I can see there.

Blogger has brought me something over 20,000 page views since January 1 of 2011, and it will be interesting to see what kind of traffic I receive on WordPress. For now, my primary reason for this post is to provide a link to the blog site at WordPress. As I become more comfortable with the new system, I will change the links that I’ve put on the RV forums.

Please bear with me in regards to the new blog site as it is still a work in progress as I experiment with different “themes” and styles of display. It is my sincere hope that each of you that have checked in with the nonsense that I engage in here will also check in with me at the WordPress site.

Bless all of you that have been following or just checking me out, and I pray that I can continue to entertain and inform you at WordPress. It has been amazing to see the number of folks that check in from foreign countries. Somebody in the Ukraine, Brazil, Russia, Canada, Australia and other points in between must really be bored.

I love having you, and I hope you continue to follow. Once this refrigerator thing is accomplished, I hope to post some more entries with regards to our vacation to Pagosa Springs, Colorado back in 2009.

Now, without further ado, my new, and hopefully improving, blog site address:

Ignoring the Barking Dogs at WordPress

Once again, thanks to all of you.

What Started It All with a Residential Fridge

While we initially had thought that there was no way to get away from the problems of the Dometic RV refrigerator, I ran across a thread on Suite Owner’s International Travel Club’s website and forum that was started by a gentleman I’ll just call Big Al. That is his user name on SOITC’s forums.

He started out with this picture and described that they had made the change over to the Samsung RF197AC refrigerator. However, he did not provide any details as to how he accomplished the job and what all he had to do to make it fit.

With that information and also a comment from Ron of Ron and Libby that they wanted to do the same thing, I got in touch with both via the private message feature of the forums. Ron was first to answer, so his information go posted first here on my blog. That was followed by Richard Miller getting me his information.

Allen’s answers to my questions came back to me via private message and I shared the questions and answers on the SOITC forum. However, I forget to include the same information here as well. So, with egg all over my face for not doing this sooner as a service to others interested in the same idea, here are the questions I asked of Allen and his answers.

Allen’s answers are underlined.

Allen and Sherma,

Jo and I are in the process of either having to fix or replace our Dometic 1350 refrigerator or remove it entirely and replace with a residential. I noticed in your thread about doing the install that you had gone with a Samsung RF197AC unit. We are considering the same number, but we aren't sure of whether the current models are of the same dimensions as yours.

You also mentioned that you didn't travel, but do you ever pull in your slides?

YES, we don't travel over the road but do have to move our RV at times.

If so, is there an issue with hitting the kitchen island?

NO problems at all we have about an 1 1/2 with slide in, we don't have a generator and have no way of keeping the Frig cold.

As near as we can tell, in our 38TKSB3, ours would be just a tad short of hitting our peninsula counter.

Did you lower the floor for the refrigerator, and if so, did the slide rollers below that floor cause a problem?

We only removed the bottom drawer and it was a perfect fit. We didn't use that drawer anyway and it wasn't much of a trade-off for the bigger frig! We did add a 3/4 inch board at the bottom so the legs would have extra support. We stained the board to match current interior color. No problems with the slide rollers.

How did you anchor the refrigerator?

L brackets in the back. Removed the two outside access panels to bolt the frig to the sidewall frames for a total of 4 brackets.

(Well, after thinking on that a bit, you might have not needed to if you never travel.)

If possible, could you be of assistance to us in our "potential" project by providing some answers?

Hope I have answered all your questions. We also have pictures posted on the website. We have not missed the old Dometic frig and all the problems we had however we love the extra space of the residential frig.

Thanks for any help you can provide.
Terry Miller

So, if any of my readers are considering a transition from an RV refrigerator to a residential, you will now have an idea of what is involved with the process. In no way am I saying that this will work in every RV. Thus, if any of you are considering the transition, be sure and do your own homework and measure…measure….measure.

Good luck. I’ll post more once we have our transition done.

More on Richard Miller’s Fridge Change-over

I received an e-mail this evening from Richard Miller. I showed pictures of the finished project in my last post for this topic of installing a residential refrigerator in a Mobile Suites in place of the Dometic 4 door refrigerator. That installment is just below a post or two, or you can find it at this link:

More on Refrigerator Changes of Others

The message of his e-mail simply informed me that he was attaching some more pictures and drawings of his modification. I should point out that Richard and Gracie’s installation is the only one I’ve seen where someone was able to keep the drawer below the refrigerator. All others have done away with their drawer.

So, without further ado, allow me to post his photos and drawings, and if I remember right, I’ll try to link the photo to the comments in the previous blog posting on their refrigerator.

First, the two drawings that Richard did up for me. This first one appears to be as one would be looking at the front of the full refrigerator compartment. Hopefully, each of you can read the dimensions in the diagrams.  If you can’t, contact me via one of the RV forums with your e-mail address and I’ll try to provide that for you.

This next one is a drawing of the “support box” that Richard put under the refrigerator’s “floor.”  While the bottom two lines may be hard to read because they are lighter, they state:

“Frig Support  -  1/2” plywood lays on this.”

You may recall that I wrote of him stating that the two boards at the sides “straddle” the area of the slide rollers. I also wrote of him saying that he had “ripped” the 2 x 8 boards down to a smaller size.  That size is 6 5/8” to fit between the floor of the slide up to the “floor” of the refrigerator.

This next photo is of the drawer area, showing the left side as one would see it when looking into that space.  I had written of Richard saying that he had cut down the size of the “head” of the slide adjusting bolt so that it wouldn’t drag on the bottom of the drawer.  If you look closely, you may be able to see that in this photo.

The next two photos show the refrigerator sitting on its “floor”.  And, no, I don’t know what that black roller-looking thing is in the first picture.  (I’ve mentioned before that I am neither an engineer nor a carpenter.  Not a cabinet maker either.)

The next photos show the drawer compartment’s corners and sides.

Being that I am none of what I just mentioned, if anyone is using these as examples, be sure and compare them to the space in your own RV.  I am glad to provide these pictures to help anyone, but it is unlikely that I could answer too many questions about details of the modification of the change-over.

This last photo appears to show how Richard has fastened his “support box” to the cabinetry by using screws through the front of the cabinet.  At least, that is how I see it.

If a reader of this modification has any questions and is a member of SOITC (Suite Owner’s International Travel Club), you could likely contact Richard via private message.

Now, I’m looking forward to any information that can be provided by another SOITC member that is planning on installing the Samsung in his coach as well.  That member has the username of Mikey.

So, if you all are considering such a modification for yourselves, I sincerely hope that I have been able to provide some service to you by posting all this information and photos.  Good luck with your job.  I’ll be glad when ours is done and I can quit “stewing” about this whole thing.

I should provide you all with one humorous side note.  We took our Honda EU3000IS generator in to have a new battery put in and a tune up.  I was told that it would be at least 3 weeks before it was finished.  So, if the changeover of the refrigerator is done in 2 weeks and the generator won’t be ready for 3 weeks, which gives me a whole week there when we could have a disastrous power outage to mess with my mind about being without.

Here is hoping that you all don’t get to laugh at that “possible” predicament.