I had no idea a block of ice could last three days sitting in a luke-cool fridge. Maybe, that's an idea. Rather than buy a new fridge for $1,400, how about a $2.50 block of ice at Smart & Final?
Aren't fridges supposed to last more than seven years or is seven years the new 20 for fridges, like 60 is the new 40 for people?
"Oh yeah, you're done," said a friend, when I told her our fridge was in slow-quit mode. "You might as well forget about calling a repair person and go ahead buy a new one."
Thanks for the support. Thanks for the understanding. Thanks for the advice.
She has a point. Find an appliance repair person these days. You'll have better luck uncovering an intact whale skeleton on Sharktooth Hill.
Appliances have our number anyway. When we'd bought the fridge, I'd opted for the extended warranty and paid on it for years until I was overcome with extended warranty fatigue.
When you stop paying, it is as if you are sending the fridge a subliminal message: "I quit. You're on your own."
The fridge receives the message, which it divines as a lack of confidence vote, and says in turn: "If this is what you think, I quit too."
It's a Whirlpool standoff and no one is budging an inch.
Maybe I can fix it myself. That's a plan. Not a good plan, not a plan that has ever worked before but a plan nonetheless.
Google "fridge not cooling." Google advised cleaning the condenser coils because they "cool and condense the refrigerant. When the coils are clogged with dirt and dust, they can't efficiently release heat."
"Cleaning" required a long brushlike tool, sort of a pipe cleaner with bristles, which we did not own yet but would soon after ordering it on Amazon.
Reviews on the Vanitek 26-inch long flexible dryer vent cleaner and refrigerator condenser coil brush auger lint remover were mixed as they often are in this bittersweet consumer world in which we live:
"Not worth the money (not even $6?). Fell apart in two uses."
"This saved our fridge and our marriage."
Two days later, the potential fridge and marriage saver arrived. After horsing the fridge from its narrow and intractable space using muscles I did not have nor ever would, I lay on the floor in order to access the coils located underneath the fridge, splayed my legs for stability and moved back and forth using my jaw, forehead and left arm to propel myself as if I were doing a horizontal line dance.
Victory. The brush retrieved clumps of dust. I would have liked to have gotten my hands on the idiot who hadn't cleaned this thing in years.
After de-clumping both the front and the back of the fridge, I plugged it in and voila, the compressor motor kicked on, the fridge began to cool and we seemingly had dodged a bullet.
However, we hadn't so much dodged the bullet as had the bullet whiz by us and then reverse course and come back twice as fast. Cold became cool that became room temperature that became "at least it's not hot." That's when I bought the block of ice to let the compressor know that it wasn't on an island but that we had called the cooling calvary.
The ice melted, although it took three days. That's when we threw in the towel and drove to Urner's for the Memorial Day sale. That's the way it is and the way it should be.
May 30, 2021 at 02:00PM
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HERB BENHAM: In a cooling standoff, nobody wins - The Bakersfield Californian
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Herb
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