Burner Outages Norcold 2118 Polarmax

**KennethWood55** · 10-21-2020, 11:13 PM

Well... We made our first trip to the Sierra’s in our 373FB and experienced several burner outages every night while dry camping at 7,000 ft. elev. when the temps would drop into the mid 30’s. I know the owners manual states they recommend running the fridge on AC above 5,500 feet, but we were dry camping. We would wake up every morning to the fridge beeping, due to it not being able to light on propane. We would turn the fridge off and start the generator and run the fridge on the genny for about 45min. and then kick it back over to propane, turn the genny off, and it would run all day and into the night.
My question is... Has anyone experienced this problem, and what did you do to fix the problem?
I know Norcold makes a cold weather kit for this fridge for temps below 32 degrees, but it never got that cold. Not sure if this kit is worth installing or not?
Any feedback anyone has would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

**KennethWood55** · 06-18-2023, 12:57 AM

Well… We have made our second trip to the Sierra’s and we had the same problems with our refrigerator. After doing some research online, I found that opening the burner inspection door to allow more air in, turning the flow of propane down just a little bit & making sure the igniter is 3/16” above the burner has fixed our high altitude issues. The refrigerator has not had a burner’s outage since making those adjustments.

**Scott'n'Wendy** · 06-18-2023, 04:31 AM

Makes sense. With the thinner air at elevation, the air/fuel ratio is off. How did you restrict the propane flow?

**KennethWood55** · 06-18-2023, 05:11 PM

There’s a thumb screw on the air/fuel manifold on the back of the refrigerator, just before the burner. With the burner on, I turned the thumb screw clockwise maybe an 1/8 of a turn until the flame went out. Then turned it counterclockwise maybe a 1/16 of a turn. The slightest touch will change the height of the flame.
You need to monitor how cold your refrigerator is getting after adjusting the flame. To low of flame will not allow the refrigerator to get cold,(ask me how I know).
After a few tweaks, I found that you want the flame as big as it can be without causing burner outages in the middle of the night.
The final adjustment is to turn the thumb screw clockwise, or down, approximately 1/32 to 1/16 from its original position.
Hope that helps, it has fixed my high altitude burner outage issues…