We first encountered a loss of gas back in 2007. A French "engineer" dragged a large bottle of gas on board whilst still smoking his cigarette and recharged it.
2008 it needed another recharge and luckily we had popped back to the U.K. and refilled the system there.
2012 back in France we again lost gas and a really professional engineer came on board, this time with two tanks. I'm pretty sure he purged whatever was in the system into one tank then filled from the other.
This was the first time we had heard mention of vibration loosening the sealing nuts. He said it was a common problem on my particular fridge.
Last week in the heatwave it happened again! Fridge running continually and holding just 9 degrees (30 ambient though :))
So yesterday ANOTHER engineer arrived.
"You'll find the nuts have vibrated loose" he said and I think that he said he got a complete turn on one of the couplings.
Now working fine, I left it on a low setting just for the system to settle in and bailed out at 0.5 degrees. I don't like exploding beer cans.
So, has anyone else experienced such a failure rate and why can't I just put some amalgamating tape around the joints?
Yes I should have asked yesterday but I had to leave before he had finished.
Worth mentioning that we live onboard for 6 months of the year so the fridge (and everything else) gets a massive workout compared to someone who only sails weekends and holidays.
Yes, the quick-connect couplers are the most common reason for loss of gas. Since there is no particular reason for their existence after the system has been installed on a boat, it's sensible for the next refrigeration engineer to simply cut them off and braze the pipes together permanently. After recovering the remaining gas and before evacuating and refilling the system of course.
Agree thanks. For the time being I have drawn a marker pen line across the nuts and will monitor for movement.
Cheers