My "data" is this: my milk is always still good at the end of a 7-10 day
trip to Baja. The nightly lows may never fall below 80 and yet the milk
is still good. I don't care what the exact temp is inside the fridge as
long as it keeps my food safe and it has done so on several Baja trips a
year since 1994. We put the milk in the Dometic before we go, along with
all the other pre-chilled food we can jam in there. I also freeze a half
gallon jug of water and put it in there too, standing up next to the
milk. This helps since we drive for 10-18 hours through the desert to
get there and there is too much gear in the way to light the fridge
every time we stop. This habit started many years ago when the fridge
did not work as well on 12 volts and I had not yet found the cooked
wiring that caused it. I still do it even after fixing the wiring. The
jug thaws completely after a couple days but I leave it in so it acts as
a thermal mass to stabilize the temps. I suspect it "stores" excess cold
during the balmy nights and releases it during the hot days. Sometimes
we use the jug of cold water to drink or to make OJ from late in the trip.

The Dometic is a very handy device. Far from perfect but we have adapted
to it's limitations. You should always keep enough cold mass inside.
Never add very much to it at a time unless the items are already well
chilled. We usually add 2 bottles of warm beer or water at bedtime and
place these in the door away from food that can spoil. During the day we
don't add much other than leftovers and maybe 1 warm beer or water after
lunch. The Dometic can keep food cold pretty well but can't make warm
stuff cold in any real quantity. We do not keep much raw meat in it
unless we will cook it fairly soon and even then we try to put the meat
in small plastic containers so the meat stays a more constant temp on
it's outer surface.

I have a thermometer permanently mounted inside the fridge on the side
wall. I only look at it if I have a reason to.

Mark

Michael Elliott wrote:

> Mark notably has the magic Dometics. He and I have gone round and round
> about these things. I've done a lot of testing and my Dometic, which is
> clean and works fine, has never achieved what I consider satisfactory
> cooling when the temps go over 90F -- I like my temps under 50F for the
> food and it can't do it.
>
> He reports ice on the cooling fins in his, which I would expect from
> moist air and cold fins, so I want hard data. To prove his Dometic's
> magic-ness, he's gonna need to stick a thermometer in his reefer and
> tell us what the temp differential is between the outside air and the
> Dometic's interior.
>
> Mark, I'll buy you that thermometer if you'll meet me at Denault's
> before you leave on what I bet is a sweet trip. If your reefer keeps the
> air temp on the middle shelf below 50F during the middle of a 95F+ day
> I'll stand you to some cold IPAs at Henneseys.
>
> --
> Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
>