Refrigerator Issues

[Bob]

The house we recently bought came with an old-ish GE side by side refrigerator. The ice maker and water dispenser never worked and it has been on our list of appliances to replace. Lately we have been having some performance issues with it (beer not cold enough, ice cream somewhat soupy) even after lowering the temperature settings repeatedly. I would like to make it functional enough so I can take my time shopping for a deal on a replacement. There's nothing worse than trying to find a bargain under pressure.

I did some basic googling and found that some people recommended cleaning the condenser coil. I may give that a try, but I wanted to see if there was anything else easy I can try to improve performance in the short term.

[kevm14]

YES. Remove the condenser vent and vacuum all the nasty dust from all the coils you can find. Then, pull it out from the wall, remove any cover on the rear (may just be cardboard) and clean everything on that end. You will find a TON of junk.

That alone may solve your problem. I had a problem with mine but it turned out the evaporator fan (the coil and fan are in the freezer compartment on my cheap top/bottom Frigidaire) stopped turning (the compressor was running but the fan wasn't). I unplugged it, jostled it around a bit, and it started working. But before I did that, I cleaned a bunch of dust crap, which I'm sure vastly improved its efficiency.

So, make sure the fan is running, and clean thoroughly.

[Bob]

The condenser coil was conveniently located on the bottom of the fridge. I cleaned a ton of dust and dog hair out from under it. Unfortunately that wasn't really the problem. The freezer is cooling well (in the 20s), but the fridge is in the 50s! I am not really up for investing a ton of time in something I was going to replace anyway, but I may try to exercise my home warranty to see if I can limp it along for a while until I replace it.

[kevm14]

The freezer should be 0, not in the 20s. Is the evaporator fan going in addition to the compressor?

Another problem could be that the evaporator is iced up.

[Bob]

I believe the evaporator is iced up. I decided to use my home warranty to get it repaired ($100 deductible). If nothing else, it will buy me some time to shop for replacement. Having the time to find a deal vs buying this week will probably save me $100.

[bill25]

I worked in the food industry for a long time because I was in college for like 8 years.

Food safety rule:
You have 4 hours over 41 degrees. Then toss everything. bacteria is exponential so if food is unsafe after 4 hours, just imagine 8...


Just trying to help, not tell you what to do.

[Bob]

So far I haven't died, although I know I need to address this soon. The repair guy is coming today. In the meantime, I am trying to avoid storing anything that is truly perishable (meat, dairy) in the fridge, only vegetables and beer.

[Bob]

Turns out the heater was dead and that caused the evaporator to ice over completely. The tech replaced the heater. He said to leave it off for 24 hours for the ice to melt completely, but I wanted to expedite that process so I used a heat gun to melt most of the ice. I will do the 24 hour thaw sometime that is more convenient.

[kevm14]

Yup, it runs once every 24 hours since the evaporator, unlike regular A/C, runs MUCH colder than freezing, so it just ices up by design. Then it drains to the pan under the fridge. The condenser air blows across that, evaporating it. Exciting.

[Bob]

Apparently this hadn't run in a long time. I am still going to look at new fridges tonight, but at least this may have bought some time.