Problem Refrigerator and Common Fixes

With today's current economic woes you find more and more people trying to be their own Mr. Fixit. This comes as no surprise to me as I also get a great satisfaction from doing it myself and saving some money at the same time. In my experience as an appliance technician I have seen just about anything you could imagine when going on a job after a customer tried to repair their own machine.

I am writing this article to try and prevent the average person from getting in over their head because sometimes trying to save money will actually cost you more money.

Scenario: Honey, the refrigerator is not working right, my ice cream is soft and the meat isn't frozen solid.

Now there are several problems that could be occuring but we will start with the basics. 1. Check to see if the refrigerator is plugged in (trust me I have seen this be the problem) 2. Make sure the dials are not turned to zero or off (this happens a lot when there are kids living in the home) 3. Remove the kick plate from beneath the doors. This is where your condenser is and if it is extremely dirty then the refrigerator will not cool properly, if it is clogged then clean it with a condenser brush and a vacuum hose (this occurs mainly when there are inside pets) 4. If these first 3 steps are satisfactory then you have a more serious problem.

At this point the average person should probably concede the challenge and call a repair man.

If you decide to continue I will be posting more advanced solutions based on specific problems a refrigerator is experiencing. Stay tuned or contact me and I will write it up for you.