(Fridge) sometimes relatives inject common sense

 

Yesterday, our fridge was warm again. When I say again, it happened in 2018, and 2019.

I googled it back in 2018, and sign of fridge warm, freezer frozen, is often a problem with defrosting. At that time, I didn't even know a fridge defrosts 3X per day. This fridge is a nicer 2002 model--not sure if built better/worse than current ones.

In 2018 it was not hot out, so turned out to be a defrost sensor, like $18 or so on amazon. Great, fixed.

Now, all good until August 2019, same problem. Test the continuity of the defrost wire, it's like 34 ohms, good, then maybe defrost timer. So I buy the timer and a new sensor on amazon, intending to put it in next month when it freezes up again. I was traveling a lot for work. Next month, it didn't freeze up. Oh, great, it's good again.

Happened again yesterday, test the defrost wire 34 ohms, sensor does not look swollen which is a sign it's gone bad, pull the cover off the back which is likely the first time ever, clean the grimy dirt/dust from the grille for the condenser fan, etc. Put it back.

Wife's cousin texts, "Any chance you are overstuffing the freezer?"

We are, and now, even worse than ever because of COVID-19, trying to get more each trip. Likely there is no airflow causing the evaporator to run way too cool and ice up. I bet the defrost is just fine, but the freezer being overstuffed, the increasing temps and humidity, taxes the system....

We all need a little common sense sometimes!

It Was Time

Just two days ago, Tuesday, a new refrigerator was delivered that I purchased during a Memorial Day sale. My old refrigerator is still running pretty well and most of the time it runs quietly but on occasions the fridge makes sounds that alternate between mild squeals and groaning only to return to a quiet running state after a short time. Like a Timex watch, it keeps on ticking.

I figured I should replace the old fridge before it gives up the ghost and wastes a whole bunch of food. I’ve transferred all items to the new refrigerator and I will need to give the old fridge a final good cleaning. My electric company will pick up and recycle the old refrigerator and pay me $35 to boot but it must be in running condition. I assume the running condition stipulation is to allow them to recapture the refrigerant before they recycle the components.

It was the old fridge’s time to go as it will be 42 years old in two months (purchased August, 1978).

1978 -2020 RIP. sad

Another View

Sometimes when someone else looks at a problem they come up with a solution that is so simple you say, why didn't i think of that.....

Refrigerator.

It is amazing how long a refrigerator will keep running. I still have a harvest gold Frigidaire running in my garage that I bought new in 1972. I replaced the door seal 20-some years ago but it has had no other repairs.

--
Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon

To me running means it gets cold.

After that as long as I get the $35 when I turn my old one in I don't care.

--
Nuvi 2460LMT.

Hold onto that one!

alandb wrote:

It is amazing how long a refrigerator will keep running. I still have a harvest gold Frigidaire running in my garage that I bought new in 1972. I replaced the door seal 20-some years ago but it has had no other repairs.

Newer appliances are getting incredibly shoddy. Manufacturers put money into appearance but put as little into the actual mechanics as possible, designing them to fail shortly after warranty.

Curious if you've ever checked the running wattage to compare cost of operation with a new energy-efficient model though.

I think ...

scott_dog wrote:
alandb wrote:

It is amazing how long a refrigerator will keep running. I still have a harvest gold Frigidaire running in my garage that I bought new in 1972. I replaced the door seal 20-some years ago but it has had no other repairs.

Newer appliances are getting incredibly shoddy. Manufacturers put money into appearance but put as little into the actual mechanics as possible, designing them to fail shortly after warranty.

Curious if you've ever checked the running wattage to compare cost of operation with a new energy-efficient model though.

I don't want to know wink

--
Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon

wonder

alandb wrote:

It is amazing how long a refrigerator will keep running. I still have a harvest gold Frigidaire running in my garage that I bought new in 1972. I replaced the door seal 20-some years ago but it has had no other repairs.

I too wonder about how things were built yesteryear. I moved into this house in 2002, and so the Whirlpool washer and dryer were left behind. About 2005 I replaced the washer with a top load Kenmore Elite. Flash forward to 2020. Still using the Kenmore Elite, and the Whirlpool gas dryer--it has paperwork saying it's from 1984. lol

The homeowners also installed a new furnace and a/c in 1999. the AC broke last year, so I benefited from it 2002-2019. Not happy to have to shop for a new central AC, esp. during COVID-19.

With our fridge we're going to try to put less in the freezer. I'm talking we crammed all that we could in there. I believe we need to keep a space and make sure drawers open freely and easily. It looks like our bad habit only surfaces with the icing up in the summer when hot and humid and central AC broken. The 2018 incident was when weather was cool, so defrost sensor was legitimately broken at that time.

Sometimes Relatives Inject Common Sense

These days it should read "Sometimes Relatives Inject Uncommon Sense."

No offense, just that there are a bunch of people out there that don't have any common sense!

--
John from PA

About 10 years ago, we had a fridge conk out...

..on us. I called my brother who had worked for the Frigidaire division of GM and asked him how long a refrigerator should last. His question was, ‘How long have you had it?’ I said 17 years and he said that I had the refrigerator 2 years more than it was designed for. He said that they are now throw-away items and they are designed to last a certain period of time. Sometimes you get lucky and they last longer than their designed lifespan.

--
With God, all things are possible. ——State motto of the Great State of Ohio

This is a throw away society.

maddog67 wrote:

..on us. I called my brother who had worked for the Frigidaire division of GM and asked him how long a refrigerator should last. His question was, ‘How long have you had it?’ I said 17 years and he said that I had the refrigerator 2 years more than it was designed for. He said that they are now throw-away items and they are designed to last a certain period of time. Sometimes you get lucky and they last longer than their designed lifespan.

I needed to replace racks on my dishwasher. They were almost twice the cost of a new dishwasher so I bought a new washer and let them figure out how to dispose of the old one.

--
Nuvi 2460LMT.

the

John from PA wrote:

These days it should read "Sometimes Relatives Inject Uncommon Sense."

No offense, just that there are a bunch of people out there that don't have any common sense!

Way I look at it is I don't know everything. Many of the guys I work with went to MIT and Stanford, and when I see them now on zoom, I think to myself, man, you have a beautiful house. Oh, that's the airport Elon Musk flies out of, huh? These guys are uber competitive, and intelligent, but there are many things they never did before like install a hot water heater or replace the compressor on an AC. Because there wasn't time in their upbringing, and it's just not their swim lane. I mean it's a lot harder to get into those schools as a '14 grad or a '12 grad, then when I went. And when I grew up, my dad had zero interest in cars, yet rebuilt the top end of his car because people didn't pay others to do things back then and they didn't dispose of things like today.

I can dismantle the entire fridge, test various pieces for continuity, but I missed the fact that stuffing the freezer disrupts the airflow. If that's me you were referring to, none taken! I get that you're much smarter, but I find the older we get, the more we have to be comfortable in our own skin.

believe

pwohlrab wrote:
maddog67 wrote:

..on us. I called my brother who had worked for the Frigidaire division of GM and asked him how long a refrigerator should last. His question was, ‘How long have you had it?’ I said 17 years and he said that I had the refrigerator 2 years more than it was designed for. He said that they are now throw-away items and they are designed to last a certain period of time. Sometimes you get lucky and they last longer than their designed lifespan.

I needed to replace racks on my dishwasher. They were almost twice the cost of a new dishwasher so I bought a new washer and let them figure out how to dispose of the old one.

Believe it or not, sears direct has all the parts. Every single one. And it's like you say. I found 1/6 screws were missing on the panel that covers the compressor and condenser fan--those screws are $4 each. It reminds me of my wife's GM SUV. A fender liner screw is $5. No lie. I managed to find one of those places that makes replica parts for classic cars and instead of getting one screw for $5, I got 50 for $12. Did I need the other 49? No, but as someone here pointed out, I don't have much common sense hahahahahahaha (in reality I figured if 2 more stripped I broke even).

Luckily the main things that could fail are reasonable. #1 defrost thermo thing, about $30 OE or $8 on amazon knock off, the evaporator fan, about $80 but you don't need the fan blade, just the motor, $55 OE, and the defrost wire about $60. See what I mean? $30, $55, $60, worth replacing to avoid a $2000 expenditure. Even the compressor and evaporator and condenser could be replaced, each of those are around $200--meaning if 1/3 broke, why not spend $200 over $2000, right?

btw I'll start a new thread, but we're getting new central AC this year. I moved into this house when I was single and got 17 years out of a unit previous seller installed. In shopping around...hehehehehehehe who woulda thunk they are 5 figgas. I hate taking that money out of the bank but I look at it 12 year warranty and hope it's a 20 yr life...

an example

MMtoTSS wrote:

Sometimes when someone else looks at a problem they come up with a solution that is so simple you say, why didn't i think of that.....

A buddy setup call centers when people still used phones that were on prem--it was very lucrative.

Anyway, he had a high profile financial client and was looking at 250 phones that did not work and they were going live on a Monday, here it was early Sat. morning after a late Fri. night of work. They spent all day Sat. looking at programming, consulting Tier IV at the vendor, on and on, when one of his crew decided to try a different patch cable on one phone. The phone worked. It turned out the mfg. included faulty patch cables with the phones. And here they are investigating programming, dhcp scopes, etc.

What threw him off was the phones lit up and had power, but no network connectivity. If there were no power (PoE), they would have looked likely at the cable and network switching right off the bat. They overlooked one of the weakest links.

I think life is like that--how much can one person know about everything? Then again, thanks to YouTube, it's like we can do things we didn't know much about, before we did it. I fixed an ABS pump on a BMW myself (turns out this afflicts cars and bikes just poor design) thanks to a 57 minute YouTube. It's a $4,200 job at the dealer. Without that YouTube, I never would have attempted. There was this guy who's just an ordinary dad like you and me, who had the best YouTube on replacing the water pump on my wife's car--I did that last Labor Day, saved me about $800. And it's that one tip, one. Nobody else could get the pump out once removed, some removed motor mounts, jacked up the engine, etc.? He said it comes right out, trust me, and it did!

On this fridge? I finally found the YouTube with the exact same model, no lie, this is like 2+ years later. The defrost timer is above the lights in the fridge portion, and the guy takes it out and shows how to. The cowling and air damper stuff needs to come out and it's easy to break--that's why the video is so helpful. as of 3 days ago I still didn't know where the timer goes.

Possible fan failing?

mcginkleschmidt wrote:

... My old refrigerator is still running pretty well and most of the time it runs quietly but on occasions the fridge makes sounds that alternate between mild squeals and groaning only to return to a quiet running state after a short time. ...

Many old refrigerators seemed to run forever. Your new one will possibly reduce your electricity consumption as they are better insulated and the compressor system is more efficient, but our last 2 lasted only 10 years. The 1st suddenly quit without any warning and the repair tech said we would be happier with another rather than fixing the one we had. The replacement had issued off and on that were covered under warranty. After the warranty ran out, it started freezing in the fridge section. Good old duct tape to block on of the vents kept the ice of the iceberg, but after a year one of the original problems resurfaced.

The current one has been fine for 4 years and maybe we got a good one, but they put the ice-maker inside the door of the fridge section. If ice isn't used regularly, the cubes stick together. If we have company for the weekend, it won't keep up with the demand even if "Ice Plus" is switched on. So we bring the counter top ice maker in from the RV to have enough ice for all.

The noise you describe may be something as simple as the condenser fan if it has one. When the bearing wears, the fan will spin up then squeal or growl, then either stop and spin up again or run quietly for awhile. Eventually, the fan will seize up and will be quiet.

--
"There's no substitute for local knowledge" nüvi 750, nüvi 3597

Same here

johnnatash4 wrote:

... Wife's cousin texts, "Any chance you are overstuffing the freezer?" ...

We have a 5 cuft chest freezer in the laundry room. It's generally 1/2 - 3/4 full or less, but with us staying at home more in recent months, I've made my trips to the store less frequently and stocked up on a lot of frozen meats and veggies. I have a digital thermometer probe with a readout on the wall and it generally reads about -4 to +2 degrees but after packing the freezer to the gills, it hangs out around 10 to 12 degrees. I think your wife's cousin is spot on with their assessment.

--
"There's no substitute for local knowledge" nüvi 750, nüvi 3597

nice

TXRVer wrote:
johnnatash4 wrote:

... Wife's cousin texts, "Any chance you are overstuffing the freezer?" ...

We have a 5 cuft chest freezer in the laundry room. It's generally 1/2 - 3/4 full or less, but with us staying at home more in recent months, I've made my trips to the store less frequently and stocked up on a lot of frozen meats and veggies. I have a digital thermometer probe with a readout on the wall and it generally reads about -4 to +2 degrees but after packing the freezer to the gills, it hangs out around 10 to 12 degrees. I think your wife's cousin is spot on with their assessment.

combination of science and common sense again....funny prior to 2018, I didn't even know where the evaporator was in a freezer on bottom units like ours, and I did not know the relationship between the freezer and refrigerator, where one motor/fan, blows all the cold air for freezer and fridge. The temp control on the refrigerator is nothing more than closing a flap, to reduce the air to the fridge. I would think that perhaps a 2020 fridge is more sophisticated in that one can likely get the temp they want, say I dunno 35F, and the freezer can be what they want. But if you ask me to envision how that works, I wouldn't know, especially if there is still only one evap, and one fan....if you say it can waste and exhaust unneeded cold air I could see that, but then no way the EPA would allow that and say energy star....like opening an apt window with AC on to warm it up...

to inject automobile ac into the mix, it's amazing how commonplace it is for a car today (or rather SUV, and high end cars), to have an evaporator in the rear, for rear AC with separate controls...my wife's SUV always leaves a huge puddle by its rear right wheel where the evap is located...so I could see modern high end fridges maybe having 2 evaps but not really sure...

Common sense

Noun: the most uncommon thing ever

--
the title of my autiobiography "Mistakes have been made"

seems

the rules have changed on our township's yard waste pickup.

Everything must be in trash barrels, no Lowe's or Costco biodegradable paper, no bundling with twine, etc.

Last week my neighbor had her yard waste in a Lowe's paper bag (3 of them). The town left them, did not collect them.

This morning, she left the same 3 bags at the curb, the town didn't take them for a second week in a row.

Doesn't she have any relatives that could call her?!