fridge/freezer temperature regulation FAQ

Yep. They weigh 70kg+. I also have a socket behind mine, but I don't plug the FF into it. Well, not directly, but via a short extension lead so I can get to the plug in the very unlikely event of a fire in the motor or short-circuit in the mains lead. Of course, I could turn off the supply to the socket, except that the CU is mounted above the FF!

Just defrosted mine, it took three days to get the glacier off the top shelf. Had it pokng out the back door.

But how much of that was muscle ?. I'm sure there is a warning in the small print about taking steps to avoid unexpected excess muscle wastage.

I just rely of doing 10K steps per day (and sometimes a lot more to make up for days spent looking at the computer or TV/YouTube all day).

Luckily I live in a village with a collection of rural routes to get to the yellow-label offerings at my local Sainsburys.

Some of it for sure, but mostly fat from my abdomen, my legs are stronger than when I started; as I said, I was well and truly in a rut, since fit jabs don't exist, for me it had to fat jabs as the way out of it ...

I've bought a watch including FitBit functionality and doing half an hour walk around the village at lunchtime. Once I've lost another couple of kg I will merely be overweight, rather than obese. Have been taking creatine as my diet doesn't provide any, and I probably struggle to produce enough..

Andy Burns snipped-for-privacy@andyburns.uk wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

My compliments on taking a step forwards that suits your needs. Ruts are something we all have to combat and I thank you for sharing your experience.

I have recently taken the step of offering to fund that approach for a family member who despite the will might not have been able to take it further.

Good luck on your ongoing journey, your informed input across many forums is most welcome and I hope to hear more from you in the future.

f x

Having said that, I've come to realise that more often than not, it *is* running whenever I take note.

So even though the 'stat is keeping the fridge compartment in the 6-8°C range, the freezer compartment ranges from -24 to -29°C, I suspect the compressor would be happier if the freezer compartment got a proper defrosting ...

There does seem to be some differences how the freezer temperature is controlled, depending on the make and model. Some years ago my sister-in-law had a fridge freezer with a single compressor, and she went away on holiday over Christmas one year, and I had offered to drop in now and again to make sure everything was OK (no burst pipes, no signs of burglary etc). One day I was checking the kitchen which had got pretty cold by then, and there was a small amount of water on the floor by the freezer. A quick look inside the freezer showed that it had started to defrost. I could only find one temperature control, and that was inside the fridge. The inside of the fridge and the room seemed to be about the same temperature. When I turned the control to a colder setting (it had numbers rather than temperature markings) the compressor started immediately, so I turned it towards maximum cold, and when I checked again the next day the freezer was properly cold again. I concluded that there was no thermostat inside the freezer and it probably kept in a frozen state when opening the fridge door allowed what would normally be warm air in the kitchen to provide the demand for the compressor to switch on.

If your fridge freezer is similarly controlled it could explain why your freezer temperature seems to vary so much.

This one has a single compressor, with the stat (just an arbitrary 1-6 on the dial) in the fridge compartment.

I has some or other mechanism (refrigerant valve? air flap? other?) that makes a noise as it operates, it is nominally "frost free" which I believe simply means it applies some low level heat within the fridge compartment once a day?

The LCD thermometer has been sitting on a cast iron weight, it reads -30 just now. An IR thermometer at point-blank range from the weight (to avoid any confusion from the diameter of its measuring circle at a particular distance) also reads the weight at -30

I'll have to eat more frozen stuff over the next month or so to allow defrosting it ...

Neighbours integrated under counter fridge did this about a decade ago and eventually failed.

One thing that I did notice was that it had (as does its replacement) a fan to blow cooler air over the external fins (which being built-in did not benefit from the normal chimney-effect to cool the rear of the fridge).

Does your F/F have passive cooling for the external hot bits, or is there an air-circulating fan, and if the latter does it still work ?

No fan, I fitted a grill into the plinth under it to allow cool air in at low level, plenty of space behind the external radiator, open channel to top of carcass it's in.

I defrosted my freezer last week in 40 minutes. Removed the 2/3rd full frozen food to a couple of cardboard boxes. Heated the inside of the freezer with a paint stripper hot air gun but never leaving it pointed at the same place inside the freezer for more than a second or two. Used a sponge to mop the melt water and a bath towel to dry the inside of the freezer before reinstalling the food. My freezer then took around 1.5 hours to register an internal temperature of -22C.

Consistent with loss of refrigerant

Oh, I'm pretty good at defrosting it quite quickly with containers of warm water, actually I think I got some spray bottles of an alcohol defroster while emptying my late parents' house. But I've only got a small coolbox and a couple of ice packs so can't keep much food cold outside the freezer.

Possible, but why all of a sudden? I'm always careful not to damage the coils by mechanically removing ice from them, just apply warm water.

But it simply went from on-all-the-time to defrosted. It never over-cooled the contents as a result of the motor running non-stop.

AB's F/F seems to be suffering from a thermostat problem of some sort (motor might fail as a result though).

Not convinced, if I turn the dial up/down the compressor turns on/off, and I can adjust the fridge temperature, but it just runs a bit too much of the time ... pretty sure a de-ice will "fix" it.

When my freezer went down I saved most of the food by wrapping it in several duvets and anoraks. I made sure, though, that the saved food was marked and eaten as soon as possible after being put back in the new freezer once it had reached -18°C.

Evidently a new fridge-freezer won't begin cooling down the freezer part until the fridge part has cooled to operating temperature. Seems the wrong way round to do things if you ask me.

Its gradua. Compressor stays on for longer, is less effective. One day there simply isn't enough gas for the thing to work at all.

I don’t think that’s right unless it’s a fancy twin stat or twin motor fridge freezer.

Normally with just one stat in the fridge compartment everything will cool together. Cooling of fridge and freezer stops once the fridge compartment reaches its target temperature.

Tim