Angie Marie I just recently had to defrost the RV freezer after nearly a year of full-time RV living. I don’t suggest that you wait as long as we did! We had ice build up that was several inches thick. The freezer wasn’t keeping food as cold as it should, and the ice was taking up space. I decided to bite the bullet and finally defrost it. I learned a few things along the way of what to do and what no to do, and I wanted to share them with you.
The extreme amount of ice build up in our RV freezer.
Safest Way to Defrost the RV Freezer
The absolute safest way to defrost the RV freezer is to remove all the food from inside of it and then turn it off. I packed a lot of our freezer items inside the fridge to keep it cool, and the rest of the food we put into our Yeti coolers. The idea is to then leave the freezer doors open until the ice and frost melt. This takes a really long time. What I did to speed up the process was to put a big bowl of boiling water into the freezer. I set down a towel on the shelf so the hot bowl wouldn’t melt anything, and then shut the freezer door for 15 minutes. I did three rounds of this, but our ice buildup was so thick that it didn’t too much. Be sure to also put a few towels in the freezer to absorb the melted ice.
A bowl of hot or boiling water with the door shut will help expedite the ice melting process.
Using a Hair Dryer to Defrost the RV Freezer
I then proceeded to melt the ice buildup with a hair dryer. This method has to be performed carefully because you don’t want to melt any part of your freezer. Keep the hair dryer moving at all times and don’t let it stop in one place for very long. This made a huge difference, and the ice started to melt instantly. I was able to start pulling chunks of ice off the back of the freezer.
Keep the hair dryer moving across the ice so that you don’t overheat any part of your RV freezer.
Do Not Chip the Ice Away with Metal Tools
One mistake that I did when defrosting our RV freezer was to use a metal scraper. I was trying to break the ice up and scrape it off the back, but in the end I actually put a few marks on the freezer wall. Luckily once I noticed those small marks, I decided to stop the scraping process. I got online to do more research, and apparently the walls inside the RV freezer and fridge are very thin. It’s easy to actually poke holes through the walls.
I put all the ice chunks into our sink as I pulled them out of the RV freezer.
Conclusion
In conclusion, defrosting the RV freezer took us about one hour. It would have been less time if we had not let the ice get so thick. I suggest that you defrost your freezer every few months or even monthly in the summer time if the ice is building up quickly. The summertime is much worse for ice build up because the air is hot and humid, and every time the freezer is open it will allow the air inside. The moisture sticks to the walls of the freezer and even the fridge.
One of the ice chunks. I’m not really sure how our RV freezer was still working with the amount of ice we had let build up.
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