Refrigeration history via Dometic

At the RV / MH Hall of Fame and Museum, there was an area where various vendors who supply equipment associated with RVs had displays. One of them that I found interesting was Dometic and its history of refrigerators, and specifically refrigerators in RVs.

I had not known that Dometic had its background in Electrolux.

Dometic and Norcold are two primary vendors who supply the refrigerators that are in many RVs. They are popular because they can run on different fuels - electricity if you're plugged in at a campground, off the batteries through an inverter, or propane. They are called "gas absorption" refrigerators (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator). Absorption refrigerators are also used by people who don't use or have access to electricity - like the Amish. Unfortunately, the refrigerators in RVs have had many problems - maybe related to the fact that they are jostled a lot, or because the companies are pressured to make their products more cheaply than is reasonable - but there have been a lot of recalls, and there are a lot of RV fires that seem to be tied to the refrigerator in the RV. I think I have heard of more Norcold issues than Dometic, but they both seem to be problematic. As a result, I didn't want to have a gas absorption refrigerator in our rig, so was glad that the Bluebird already had a residential refrigerator (installed by the previous owner) when we purchased it.