Fridge Contortions

Another topic that comes up occasionally on the RV forums is the fact that spiders love to spin webs around LP Gas burners. There are typically two gas burners on an RV that are exposed enough for spiders to find them - the water heater and, oddly enough, the refrigerator.

When the Fridge does not have AC power - like when you are driving down the road - it runs on a little bit of battery combined with a propane gas-powered science project that actually cools the fridge.

Well, I read a story about an RV that caught fire and they trumped out the usual suspects of bugs in the burners so I figured I should check mine.

The water heater looked fine and when I opened the fridge panel, it looked fine also. It was a little dirty so I vacuumed it out just to be safe. On the side of the panel I noticed a little drain port that looked like it was for some sort of overflow drainage. When I followed the tube up, I found that it was just floating there - it was broken in two with the other end running up to a connection into the fridge.

You can barely see the connection in the second picture. Two bad things; 1) The tube appears to be cracked right where it makes that connection into the fridge and 2) I can't get my hand up in there to take it off to replace it. Dang.

Another post to the RV forum and they basically said "You gotta take the fridge out". Well that sounds fun. I'm not sure what, if anything, I'm going to do about it at this point. I've mended the main break with electrical tape so it's really just the "potential" problem with the connection into the fridge. I never get frost in the freezer so I might just hope this is not an issue. How's that for a plan?