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.