UKC

In the great tradition of 'ask UKC'...
Does anyone know about fridges?
my fridge freezer is playing up - the fridge part just doesn't seem to get cold enough. It's a few years old now but not antique. I've tried cleaning accumulated dust off the element at the back but it doesn't seem to have made much difference. Weirdly (to me) the freezer section seems fine. If it makes any difference it's an upright, fridge above/freezer below. Any ideas anyone, before I shell out for a new one?
ta

In reply to ripper:

Check inside the back of the fridge for frozen drainage channels.

Defrost the whole thing if you haven't recently

Try not to move it much as the coolant doesn't like being disturbed hence why you are told to let it stand before switching on when new

Also clean any dust accumulation ( carefully)off heat exchanger grill thingies on the back.

After trying all these sensible suggestions above, as a last resort, switch it off, turn it upside down for a day, turn it upright for a day, switch back on.
This has worked successfully for me at least twice, getting several more years use out of apparently knackered fridges.

In reply to ripper:


Mine's pretty cool.




(sorry)

In reply to ripper:

At the risk of telling you something you already know - a couple of years ago I discovered that my fridge has a little dial inside it, on the 'ceiling', for controlling the temperature - and that it actually does make a big difference.

In reply to skog:

What is never clear on those dials, which people only play with when there is a problem, is that they don't make it clear whether the scale is temperature or some arbitary cooling units (the higher the number, the harder the fridge works). Ive never worked it out because I only use the control on a fridge that is knackered and is already freezing the milk.

Its probably different between types of fridge....

In reply to GrahamD:


Well mine was on the 'highest' setting (5) which I assumed was coldest, but I turned it to 1 first thing this morning - will see if that makes any difference

In reply to ripper:

Well mine was on the 'highest' setting (5) which I assumed was coldest, but I turned it to 1 first thing this morning - will see if that makes any difference

When I was buying my fridge, I noticed that the control went up to 11.
I asked the salesman about this and he said "It's one colder, isn't it?"

In reply to ripper:


Mine has a digital display in degsC which I can set with a couple of buttons.
(smugly departs for a 3 degC glass of milk)

In reply to ripper:

If the door seals are knacked it could affect the performance ( it lets air in and runs all the time trying to pump the warm air out

In reply to FactorXXX:

>



yeah thanks - you can lick my love pump

In reply to ripper:

Where is it in the house? All fairly modern fridges need to be in a warm environ to work.

In reply to ripper:

Sorry, couldn't resist... http://viz.co.uk/fridge-mums-best-friend-kitchen/

In reply to ripper:
Does it have twin compressors? If so the fridge one could be faulty?

That said a past f/f of mine did the same and a full defrost of the whole thing got it going again for a while - something to do with the thermostat siting and it thought it was colder than it was due to ice build up in insulation.

Other things, room temp and siting next to heat sources, say cooker, faulty thermostat, faulty door seal, faulty fan (if it has one), faulty door switch or maybe just the door was accidentally left slightly open for too long (mine will not cool fridge when door open, and if something is too big on a shelf it holds the door just slightly proud of its working position) and it can't get temp back down due to the freezer part over riding (assuming single compressor)?

In reply to Lusk:




I really wanted to come on jokingly calling you common for having your milk at the wrong temperature...

but apparently it's fine between 35-40F (1.67C-4.44C)

damn

In reply to ripper:

Is it a frost free fridge/freezer?

The defrost timer on ours was faulty and though the freezer appeared to work fine the fridge did not get cool enough.

Timer was replaced with a similar one from fleabay for less than a tenner.

In reply to ripper:

If its frost free fridge freezer it will have one compressor and an internal fan which blows cold air up from the freezer into the fridge . The fan could have stopped due to an ice build up, defrost it completely and switch on again(use a hairdrier). Some Zanussi and AEG have a small flap between the fridge and freezer which opens or closes depending on the temperature in the fridge this can get jammed and is not repairable because it is foamed into the cabinet.

Dont turn it upside down, this only worked on absorption fridges which didnt have compressors and there aren't many of these around these days

In reply to FBSF:


Yes, this seems weird but it's true. We had a fridge in the garage that never got cold because it wasn't warm enough.

In reply to ripper:

Put it outside for 6 months.

In reply to FactorXXX:

>When I was buying my fridge, I noticed that the control went up to 11.


Thanks. I watched it again recently, still great. And Anvil played Edinburgh a few weeks ago, I didn't make it but a mate did and said they were really good.

In reply to ripper:

Have you turned it off and on again? Seriously.

In reply to ripper:

Sounds like what happened to ours. Turned out to be the compressor (I think). Basically, it puts all its effort into maintaining the freezer at temperature so never quite gets to making the fridge cold. If you check the freezer temperature it might not actually be as cold as it should be.
The repair man said it would cost around £200 to fix and that would last a year or so and then it would go again.
So we gritted our teeth and bought a new fridge-freezer.

In reply to ripper:

I'm trying to buy a new fridge freezer and I was surprised to find out they nearly all need to be kept above 10°c. There are a few that don't, and most of them are Beko ones which have some sort of low ambient temperature trigger that keeps the thing working.