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refrigerator smells like rubbing alcohol

4 year old Samsung side-by-side refrigerator. Wife just called me at work says the with the doors closed there is a smell of rubbing alcohol.

Any ideas why that might be happening?

Reply to
noname
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What do you mean by "with the doors closed"? The smell is gone with the doors open? Or, are you just emphasizing that the smell is there even with the doors open.

Maybe a slow refridgerant leak? Maybe a bottle of rubbing alcohol spilled nearby.

Reply to
Pat

Pat thanks. Can't get the story straight our of her. With doors open smells worse. As a note last weekend I unclogged the bottom of the defrost drain tube of dust because we were getting water in the bottom of the crisper.

Reply to
noname

As well struck her head in the door and it is worst at the bottom of the cabinet where teh water had pooled up last week (we cleaned it completely) swears it is a chemical smell.

Reply to
noname

Refrigerator odors are notoriously difficult to diagnose. The first step is to through clean-out and then clean the inside of the fridge and freezer. You might find something in there that is spoiling which you were not aware of.

Also, be sure you clean any coils, frequently accessible by removing a plastic panel, at the bottom front of the unit.

Additionally, you most likely have a built in water filter in the unit, have you replaced that recently? You want to look at anything which has changed recently.

Lastly, refrigerant and refrigeration oil can have aromatic odors which are somewhat similar to isopropyl alcohol, ammonia or nail polish remover. If someone hasn't been exposed to a lot of chemical odors, I have found they can only compare new odors to those they are familiar with.

Hopefully you do not have a refrigerant leak, if you do, I hope you have an extended warranty or a service contract. Getting these newer refrigerators repaired professionally is obscenely expensive.

Reply to
Stormin' Norman

The only food that smells like alcohol to me is an orange at a certain stage of decomposition.

I tossed my last one when the compressor started banging around after 6 or 7 years. That was 6 or 7 years ago. The replacement is still humming along. Crossing fingers. I still have an old Westinghouse in the basement - unused now - that works fine. It's probably 50 years old.

Reply to
Vic Smith

Without a doubt the older stuff was made much better, however it will probably take 3x the power to run.

Feel free to let us know the outcome.

Reply to
Stormin' Norman

Yes, that will do it. Something is hiding in there.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

I will comment on the old stuff. I have a 45 year old freezer. I wondered if replacing it would be worth it for the savings in power. I put my kill-a-watt on it and gathered data for about a week. It was one of the warmest weeks, although the AC in the house was on. The results were that it would take many, many years to save enough to warrant the purchase. The old one is still humming along. I wish I could say the same thing about the regular fridge ... 8 year old house and we're on the 3rd fridge. We replaced the 1st on because it just didn't fit in, but it did have ice maker problems. The side by side doors were physically in the way. A new french door unit (Whirlpool) solved that problem, but the 1st one had many problems, including just shutting down when it decided to. Whirlpool actually bought it back. 3rd one, Samsung, is actually exhibiting some of the same problems as the WP and I've come to find out that the WP was actually made by Samsung. Samsung really shouldn't be playing with microcontrollers if they don't know anything about fault tolerance.

Reply to
Art Todesco

I replaced our "second" fridge a few years back when it died. It was a

14 cu ft and I replaced with an 18 cu ft frost free. Savings was $10 a month so payback for a $400 base model was reasonable. Our kitchen fridge though was a lot more money and payback could not be justified at that rate.
Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Here is an interesting calculator, from EnergyStar.gov, it allows one to calculate approximate energy use of different size and vintage refrigerators and freezers.

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There is a very significant difference in energy use between the older and newer machines.

As for reliability of the new appliances, IMHO, it is a really good idea to install a high quality, whole house surge suppressor. It doesn't seem to take much to destroy many microprocessor controlled appliances and devices.

Reply to
Stormin' Norman

On Fri 14 Jul 2017 06:44:16a, Ed Pawlowski told us...

I know from the gitgo when I buy a new appliance that it will usually be larger, have more features, and higher technology, and I don't really expect to realize in savings in operation. The largest refrigerator I could fit in this kitchen was 20 cu.ft. It had all the faetures I was looking for. Then, when we decided we needed more room, be bought a second refrigerator, but had to fit in a closet and was only 18 cu.ft. with only the basic feaures. It was meant primarly for long term storage of primarily staple items. I suspect it uses less energy than the first one.

Our electricity is included in our co-op fee at a flat rate. We only see an electric bill if we exceed the monthly allotment, which we generally do during our hotest months of the summer.

Reply to
Wayne Boatwright

In my case a surge suppressor probably wouldn't have helped. Nothing was destroyed in the electronics. I just went weird. The processor shut down the unit giving no indication on the front panel. Even though we were on vacation, a friend checked in every 2 days and would have caught an indicator light on the panel. BTW, this has also happened to the new replacement (Samsung) unit, but we were at home. The indication was that none of the lights inside came on when you opened the door. Flipping off the breaker for a minute and then on again, "solved" the problem. BTW, a friend has a Samsung unit and a similar thing happened to his unit. I now have a temp probe inside the fridge that reports to a cloud website. If the fridge goes above 50 degrees, it will notify me via email. If I'm out of town, I can call someone who has a house key.

Reply to
Art Todesco

noname posted for all of us...

Maybe she's running a home massage business.

Reply to
Tekkie®

We love you anyhow, Art.

Reply to
micky

Is it harmful to eat the ice when it smells like alcohol

Reply to
Bertha

Probably not. Why does it smell like alcohol? Ethanol? Methanol? Isopropyl? Some other one?

Reply to
micky

Why ask some 3 years later?

Reply to
bruce bowser

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