105
It is defrosting.
Frost free refrigeration equipment goes through a defrost cycle every few hours. This normally involves turning off the cooling compressor and activating a heat tape that is attached to the evaporator coil for about 20 minutes. This melts any frost and ice that has accumulated on the evaporator coil and keeps it from accumulating.
It is ...
68
Someone will close the door and...
It will fill the fridge's internal spaces with mold
Air holds moisture. Warm air is capable of holding more moisture than cold air. Everytime you open the fridge door, you let in room air. This contains more moisture than air can possibly hold at refrigerator temperatures, which means condensation occurs inside the ...
answered Jun 19 '19 at 13:38
Harper - Reinstate Monica
194k16 gold badges182 silver badges449 bronze badges
49
You're probably not saving any meaningful amount of electricity by turning it off for just 2-3 days. Sure, it won't use any for those days, but the temperature inside will raise to room temperature. After you turn it on again, it will have to work for many hours to cool down again. This could cause abnormal wear on the compressor, because it's designed to be ...
39
Going to be away for 4 months, should we turn off the refrigerator or leave it on with water inside?
If you're gone for a long time, it's good to turn off anything that doesn't really need to be on. Not only does that not waste power, but it reduces the chance of something bad happening.
The issue with fridges is that they collect moisture inside and they seal well. That's a bad combination if moisture starts out in the box. The way to deal with that is ...
29
Every Freezer including yours has to have a defrost cycle designed in or the cooling coils become so encrusted with frost the recirculation air can no longer pass over them. Then everything goes downhill.
So the engineers design for and install an element between the coils, Control it with a timer and turn it on periodically to eliminate the frost build-...
26
Going to be away for 4 months, should we turn off the refrigerator or leave it on with water inside?
If you're going to turn off a fridge, you need to prop the doors open. If you don't, humidity in the fridge will cause the growth of mold everywhere, including potentially, places behind panels you cannot clean without some serious disassembly.
Can't you just wipe out all the water? No. Some of the moisture is ice which has accumulated behind the panels ...
answered Oct 12 '16 at 14:46
Harper - Reinstate Monica
194k16 gold badges182 silver badges449 bronze badges
26
There's 2 reasons to wait after moving a refigerator.
If you tipped it over the oil needs to re-settle in the compressor.
If you interrupted a run cycle the compressor may not be able to re-start, as the motor has a low starting torque and starts more easily working into a low pressure difference - ie after a little rest.
In the first case wait a few ...
25
As a certified HVAC person I can tell you it might work after standing back up and plugging in but depending on the system the oil drains from the compressor. On many units it takes time to make its way back to the compressor (if it can at all). I have seen brand new window AC units that were shipped on their side and turned on after several hours that blew ...
23
Going to be away for 4 months, should we turn off the refrigerator or leave it on with water inside?
This depends a lot on where you live. Here in Florida for example, going away for a long period, you would NOT want to cut power to the fridge and leave it open. It would still grow "samples" all over the place. Instead you would want to add some water bottles (milk jugs with tap water in them) to the fridge, turn the temperature UP as warm as it will go, ...
22
Refrigerators are cooled using a heat pump, the principle that all air conditioners work on. Basically, a refrigerant is pumped through the cool side and absorbs heat, then that heat is radiated out into your home. The hotter your home's air is the more difficult it is for the fridge's cooling system to radiate heat. A refrigerator that is working fine won't ...
21
Instruction manuals for refrigerators and freezers typically tell you to transport upright, or if not possible to allow to stand 24 hours upright before using.
20
Total, utter, male-bovine-derived-organic-fertilizer.
The cabinet isn't helping it cool any (and is almost certainly less ventilation space than the manufacturer requires), but the freezer really can't have much effect, being on the other side of the cabinet.
The stove on the other side gets far hotter than the outside of the freezer does - so why wasn't ...
18
Wait until the motor stops running. Unplug it. Keep it upright while moving it - it's o.k. to tip it slightly to put a rug or towel under to slide it along the floor. Or just slide anyway. Plug back in. Job done. The waiting time is only when it's likely to be tipped when carrying, or putting it on its side in the car, etc.
15
If basic cleaning doesn't help, your next call is to the local utility, and local government.
Because many of them have rebate programs to subsidize, or even entirely pay for replacement of a fridge. A random appliance store won't necessarily know this; you need to hunt these programs down.
Most fridges have refrigeration machinery is a sealed unit and ...
answered Apr 30 '20 at 15:06
Harper - Reinstate Monica
194k16 gold badges182 silver badges449 bronze badges
13
Something like this? (Brass Quick Tee Adapter)
Do not use a saddle valve. In many places they are illegal...for good reason
13
As the hinge pin appears to be flush with the plastic bushing, the first attack would be to pry at the edges of the bushing. If you can wiggle it out, the pin becomes more exposed, allowing for more prying directly on the pin.
If you can get a tool between the bushing and the pin, there's another wedge pry point.
If you have access to strong magnets, you may ...
12
Residential Kitchen
In a dwelling unit (residential), GFCI protection is only required for kitchen receptacles that serve the countertop surfaces. There's no requirement to GFCI protect receptacles that serve a refrigerator. Unless the fridge is plugged into a countertop receptacle.
National Electrical Code 2014
Chapter 2 Wiring and Protection
...
12
Going to be away for 4 months, should we turn off the refrigerator or leave it on with water inside?
You’re going to save at most $20 by turning it off ($60/3). You’ll go through effort and time to empty it and so on, plus incurring extra electric energy to re-cool it when you get back. I’d recommend filling both the freezer and the refrigerator compartments with random bulky objects so that there’s very little air remaining (air can leak; big boxes can’t). ...
10
Going to be away for 4 months, should we turn off the refrigerator or leave it on with water inside?
Usual recommendation is to turn it off and prop the door open so it airs out and doesn't give mold a chance to grow.
10
The other answers are correct that you are seeing the normal defrost cycle of your freezer. I'd just like to add two additional observations:
1) There are commonly two kinds of defrost timers: mechanical and adaptive. Your fridge seems to have a mechanical defrost timer due to its regular 14hr cycle regardless of usage. That means it's often wasting energy ...
10
That is almost certainly the drip pan, and it is intended to catch condensation flowing from the condensation/defrost drains in the fridge/freezer.
This water should just evaporate into the surrounding air over time.
Cleaning it occasionally is not a bad idea, but it is not necessary to 'replace' any of the water you may find in it.
10
A fridge keeps a steady temperature by turning the compressor on and off. The only difference is that you exchange a few on/off cycles with one longer on-cycle when you get back. I would say that does not negatively affect fridge lifetime, and might even improve lifetime because the total on-time is reduced as well as the number of cycles.
The only thing I ...
9
Going to be away for 4 months, should we turn off the refrigerator or leave it on with water inside?
Another reason to turn it off: if it's on, but you have a long power cut (something trips your breaker for example) it could be sitting there wet for a long time, which is just what you're trying to avoid.
9
It is not a hardware item it is a service. It is placed in the list of options needed or not, you simple decline. As you see there are two items listed as optional installation some are needed some are not.
It is used if the refrigerator door swings open the wrong way for your kitchen they will shift it to the other side. In your case French doors are ...
9
GFCIs don't kill refrigerators. A certain percentage of refrigerators will develop leakage currents over time whether they are plugged into a GFCI protected circuit or not.
All of the refrigerators with this defect that are plugged into GFCI protected circuits will eventually start tripping the GFCI, but the ones that are not on protected circuits will show ...
9
There are special thermometers for refrigerator & freezer use.
I have a Rubbermaid thermometer (amazon link) in my garage fridge compartment and another in its freezer. This showed me my freezer has trouble maintaining safe temperature during winter (unheated garage.)
8
He's right about the GFCI ruining it only if they trip often and you reset it without pause; it could re-start a hot compressor, which is bad for it. The same as with a window AC unit it says "wait 5 mins before restarting".
Aside from that, an GFCI/RCD outlet is a rather plain outlet, either on or off, nothing special about the electricity that ...
7
Easy, cheap option would be to use shims.
These are most often used to plumb door jambs, but of course have a ton of uses in construction.
Once you put them in and figure out how far they have to go, mark them and then you can take them out and cut off the excess (either with a hand saw or by scoring with a knife).
7
I think unplugging the refrigerators will both save electricity and reduce wear on the compressors, although I agree with others that if possible you should measure the usage, in part to decide whether any (possibly small) savings is worth the effort.
Energy Savings
Empty refrigerators are less efficient, since the compressor needs to cycle on and off more ...
6
There should be a small set screw on the inside of the handle (opposite side of the picture). This is usually driven with a small Allen key. Loosen the screw, place the handle back on flush against the door surface, and tighten the screw finger-tight. Don't over tighten as they strip easily because they are so small.
The screw will look something like this
...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible