They might sell a special brush for this, long and thin.
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7 years ago
Why did back coil refrigerators vanish?
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7 years ago
replying to TimR, dirt wrote: Mine is the same. Its impossible to get to the inner coils. I tried bending the special brush at a 45 degree angle to get to it. Does not do a decent job. Please, does anyone have a better way?
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7 years ago
The last time I had this problem, I had the gardener come in and blow it out with his leaf blower. Seriously. I wheeled the fridge over to the door so the stuff would blow outside.
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7 years ago
think compressor. can make a dirt. put fridge or whatever outside so the dust blows away.
i have fixed office machines for a lifetime. there was a nun in charge of a catholic school. they used super cheap paper in the copier. clean up was a mess. one day i moved the copier outside and blew the paper dust out with compressor.
it was a windy day, the dust blew away, but the nun was mad i had done this.. till i reminded her it saved her 75 bucks for a hours labor, with my vacuum and artists brush....
she said ok but dont do it again......
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7 years ago
bob haller posted for all of us...
She didn't have the kids clean the erasers by banging them against the outside wall?
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7 years ago
Hehehe. Those were in some of the grade schools i've had the... ehm, pleasure of attending some years ago.
It's been a very long time.
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7 years ago
replying to , OkieEngineer wrote: You nailed it! Under-side coils are impossible to get very clean. And, as they clog-up with dust, the condenser temps go up, which means the compressor pressures go way up, shortening the compressor life. The old-style rear condenser units are WAY more reliable. I've seen them run 40+ years. It might be true that the fan-cooled coils are more efficient, but that efficiency will be gone within a month in most households where the coils will quickly get covered with dust.
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7 years ago
heck when i started working in 1975, i repaired office machines, including ditto machines that made those blue copies, the alcohol smelled good.
mimeograph machines black copies. kinda messy. mimiograph machines are still in use today, they are called risograph. basically a automated mimieo machine.
sold and repaired coated paper copiers, both wet toner and dry poweder machines, overhead projectors, thermofax machines. some system 80 teaching machines that used a record and card guilde..
currently i repair and sell laminating machines that put plastic on paper
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6 years ago
replying to Don Young, dhsm_64 wrote: Actually I have an old Kenmore non defrost with coils on the back and they are not that deep so you can clean them and still get them close enough to the wall! They do not get dirty as the ones under which are impossible to clean from that front guard. You actually have to open the back panel and clean that way but still they are dirty and greasy. The only true way to clean them is to have someone tilt them back on a hand truck and you vacuum and wash them that way .First one side and then the other. There can be frost free with coils on the back and they are absolutely more quiet as there is no need for a fan to cause the air flow needed for evaporation. IN a WORD they SUCK!
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6 years ago
On Thu 14 Sep 2017 10:44:02a, dhsm_64 told us...
we have what I consider a rather odd refrgerator. It's Summit, and has no bottom grid in the front, nor any coils on the back, nor any perceivable fan in the bottom where the compresor is located. It's also perfectly silent. It is frost-free and the freezer compartment maintains from -5 ot 0 degrees F, while the rerigerator compartment maintains 36-40 degrees F. This is a secondary refrigerator, but performs as well as our Maytag. Our Maytag does have a removable grid in the front as well as easy to clean coils. There are no exposed coils on the back, but it does have a fan. We had a serviceman replace the ice maker about a month ago and in the process removed the back lower panel. There is a fan but there was no dirt or dust inside.
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6 years ago
On Fri 15 Sep 2017 07:47:49a, Oren told us...
Yes, it was a solenoid valve that went berserk. It would periodically stick while filing the ice maker. I think I did post this after the repair.
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4 years ago
replying to , Greg Seaman wrote: I agree, it's such a pain.to clean all the time believe the coils in the back were much better .I forgot to unplug the unit and I broke the fan blade with the vacuum and within two years whole thing died. Only lasted not quite 5 years. What happened to the fridges that lasted
10, 15, and even 20 years?- Vote on answer
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4 years ago
replying to Frustrated, Greg Seaman wrote: I Use a blower or compressed air to blow the lentout from under unit and vacuum up after.
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2 years ago
Back in the day, engineers sent us to the moon. And they also designed and built refrigerators that were easy to use and lasted for 30 years. Then some business executives in the c-suites decided that customers should return to buy another refrigerator every 5-7 years instead. So to fix the problem they moved a perfectly designed heat exchange system to the dirtiest and least accessible place possible, micro-sized it and added a cheap plastic fan.
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2 years ago
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2 years ago
My Kenmore/Whirlpool fridge has its coils underneath, and no coils in the back, and it's lasted 42 years and going ztrong.
Didnt' coils in the back get very dusty too? Dust tends to float in the air until it sticks to something. It's not like mud that goes to the floor. So what other dirt is there for any kind of fridge except dust?
AFAIK no one recharges fridges so how often do the coils need to be accessible? Oh, for cleaning. At least when coils are underneath you can vaccuum from the front without moving the fridge. And they sell long thin brushes too. When the coils are in the back, you don't even know when they are dusty.
My fan is easily accessible once the fridge is moved away from the wall. I think I replaced it once, and onne time a mouse was stuck in the fan for 2 weeks. So both times I asssume the lack of a fan made the compressor work a trifle harder but that was 10 years ago so it clearly didn't hurt it.
I don't know for sure which is better and I certainly don't know how much but it's surely not the simple case you put forth.
They still need an air intake from the back at the floor. Why is that less of problem than venting heat?
FWIW I knew I would answer the first post but wanted to see what the second post said first. I think it's better to answer both in the same post.
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2 years ago
I suppose it was because people slammed them tight against the wall, between 2 cabinets and they couldn't breathe.
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2 years ago
I have a fridge outside and in 33 years I gave been through 3 and I started on #4 this spring. These ran an average of about a decade in the house before they went outside. They were all still running when I swapped them out. The can rusted out on all of them. All 3 went through at least one notable hurricane.
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2 years ago
The old style (coils in back) fridge I grew up with 50+ years ago is still working. Conversely, all the fridges I've owned over the last 35 years have lasted no more than about 7 years. The bottom coils get dirty (they're pretty much impossible to clean thoroughly) then they get hot, and the compressor head pressure goes up, then the compressor incurs damage from pumping against such high head pressure. Bottom coils are just to make refrigerators go bad more quickly. Planned obsolescence.