Refrigerator not cold enough

[Man-wai Chang]

What should I check first? The fridge is over 10 years old...

[LouB]

Need more info.

Checked the setting? Is this a new problem? Door seals look OK? Make and model of refrig?

[Man-wai Chang]

Max cool!

It's been like these for many years.

Yes.

Forgot... bought in Hong Kong.

[LSMFT]

See if its froze up. Unplug for 24 hours and see if excessive water ice melt flows out of it.

[Man-wai Chang]

That's what I wanna do, but my mother is NOT convinced... :)

[badgolferman]

Tell her that is what happened to my refrigerator and it cost me $100 to find out.

[Jonathan Grobe]

See

How much are you paying for electricity (per KWH)? There is a good chance you would be better off replacing the refrigerator anyway because it is using a lot more electricity than current models.

[mm]

You mean for a service call for the service man to unplug it?

When I was 9, my mother kept blowing a fuse, and she didn't know whwy and she called an electrician. All he did is unplug everything then go around plugging things in again. Even at age 9, I was sort of ashamed I hadn't done that first. I didn't expect that from my mother. By 12 she was my muscle and I would tell her what to do to fix things.

[badgolferman]

When we bought the house it came with a 1 year warranty for any appliance in the house and other possible problems. We used it several times and every service call had a $100 deductible. The refrigerator is an old Maytag and my wife wanted the warranty company to buy us a new refrigerator like they had the $1200 Jenn-Air drop-in stove. The serviceman decided the only thing wrong was that it had frozen up and he defrosted it with a hair dryer. I kind of prefer this side-by-side anyway over the newer ones. The inside is bigger than the new ones I've seen.

[mm]

LOL. BTW, I didn't mean to compare our two events as similar in complicatedness (compicatidity?), just in how things look different in hindsight.

[Man-wai Chang]

Thanks

I agree.

[jw]

My fridge is from 1940 to 1950. Just the basic round topped old WELL BUILT models that last forever. No real freezer space, but it always works. I can guarantee it uses LESS electricity than the new ones with all their defrosting elements, ice makers, and other useless gadgets.

[The Daring Dufas]

I remember a fridge my mother bought back in the 60's for a temporary home while at school. It was old then, the compressor was on the top and belt driven. It was heavy and built like a tank, it's probably still running in a garage or basement somewhere. 8-)

TDD

[jw]

Handcuff her and lock her in a closet :)

There's a good chance you need freon, but try the unplugging method first.

Or you could fix it like the drunks do. (This really happened). Back in my teens, we were renting a house and the fridge quit working. It was a furnished house and the fridge came with the place. We called the landlord, who was always drunk. He comes over and looks at it and says he needs my help to take it outside to the porch. So we get it out on the porch and he wiggles the temperature knob back and forth several times, and gets an extension cord and plugs it back in, on the porch and leaves. Now, I was young, but I could not understand why it would work on the porch if not in the kitchen.

Several hours later he returns, opens the door on the fridge and starts cussing at it. Then he shoves the fridge right off the edge of the porch, it drops about 4 feet and lands on it's top on the concrete sidewalk, while cussing at it the whole time. Then he knocks it over on it's side and tells me to help him put it back on the porch. I'm standing there thinking the guy's flipped his lid, but whatever, I help him get it back on the porch in a normal position. He plugs it back in, and says "it'll work now", and leaves again. At this point, I'm convinced he was much too drunk, and we would be without a fridge for quite a while.

That evening he comes back, staggering badly and opens the fridge door. He says "works now", and he leaves. Sure at shit.... That fridge worked perfectly. All dented up, but it worked. He never did come back to take it in the house, so we used it on the porch for a few days until we got some help getting it back in the kitchen. That fridge worked until we moved about a year later. That was many many years ago, and to this day, I still dont understand how dropping it off the porch fixed it..... or was it his cussing that fixed it?

[jamesgangnc]

When I first starte din the computer industry the place I was working had these old combo screen/keyboard devices from Prime. Sort of like the old wang terminals. They would quit and the fix was to pick them up about a foot off the desk and drop them. Worked all the time. Never bothered to figure out why but it sure was funny to watch the new employees when you "fixed" one.

[Man-wai Chang]

Prime... I had worked in a market research company that used it as the main workhorse! I actually soldered a null-modem serial cable and connected the hi-speed printer of that Prime mini-comnputer with the new Novell Netware server back then. It worked without error!

The Prime mini-computer was retired later. Now that market research company is part of AC Nielsen.