About a year ago, I noticed that the inside of my late 80's Hotpoint refrigerator was sweating a lot and it seemed that it was running warm in the refrigerator section. Freezer was fine, I had pulled the back panel and checked the freezer coils, no ice on them. I got a new barebones model from Home Depot and set the old Hotpoint out in the gargage. I fired it up a couple of times since then just to verify the freezer was still working.
I was thinking of seeing if I could sell it or give it away as a fixer so a couple of days ago I gave it a good cleaning and also plugged it in.
Well, now I find that at the midrange setting of both the freezer and fridge sections, the freezer is right at about 0 deg and the fridge is at 40 which is what I gather is considered optimal. None of the sweating I saw a year ago. I.e., it seems to be operating normally.
I'm not strong on refrigerator theory, but what could be a reason why it seemed to be exhibiting symptoms and after a year of mostly collecting dust now it isn't? Is it possible that sitting empty isn't a valid test of whether it's working well or should it not matter?
Thanks for all input