How to Secure a Loose RV Refrigerator

We received a question from a fifth wheel owner. They have a side-by-side refrigerator and it seems to shift in its position as they're traveling down the road. So once they get to the campground the refrigerator's kind of bounced out of its cavity, it's socket area. There's a variety of different methods for securing or installing a refrigerator that manufacturers use. And I would start by coming back to the outside vent here. And this is in a slide room so you would have a large vent here and a taller vent up higher to let the heat get out of it. But they're all pretty much gonna have the same kind of a cavity back here on the backside. Now, some manufacturers will put screws in this base plate on the backside of the refrigerator into this bottom plate here. That'll secure it. Now this happens to be a Monaco. We see there's no screws in here and what they have done is put insulation on the sides of this kind of wedging it in. And then they rely on the inside framework to keep that back inside this cavity. Other manufacturers, Winnebago for example, put steel plates sandwiched in with the sidewall here on L brackets. And then they bolt the sides of the refrigerator to that plate. Now they're saying they don't have anything out front, that's holding that refrigerator in. I would come back here and look and see, first of all did they have screws in here that have let go, that have stripped out? A lot of times you'll get moisture from the roof vent or especially with their unit they've got a unit in a slide room. So they got a side vent. And if you get a good, hard driving rain going down the road, you could get moisture in that vent. And it's going to come down here and try to work its way out. They could have a rotten floor in the back here that the bolts are, those screws just came out with. But probably what happened is that they relied on just the refrigerator staying in the cavity. A lot of fifth wheels don't travel a lot down the road and you know, they're more of a kind of a stationary for awhile. So I would come back here and I would look in this cavity and I would apply, just add probably three screws, decent sized screws to here. And then silicone them. You want to make sure you put a bead a silicone to protect that from any moisture, getting inside.