What's upsetting you today?

[Aliantha]

It probably means the same Clod, but over here we often refer to a house that's messy and untidy as a brothel, while still knowing it's not actually a whore house.

[plthijinx]

damn.


eta: i kid but y'all know i care.

[chrisinhouston]

Our kitchen refrigerator is making me very angry today!!!

My parents had the same refrigerator for 20 or so years, an old Kenmore model with simulated wood panneling on the doors that matched their kitchen cabinets. 20 years!!! My wife and I seem to end up having to replace ours very 3-5 years because the cost to repair this junk outweighs buying a new one most of the time.

So here is the issue. Every few months for no apparent reason the freezer side starts super freezing. I keep a thermometer in there to track the temp and it suddenly goes from an average of about 0 f to -20 f! And then the fridge side stops cooling and goes from an average around 35 f up to 50 f or so. The only way I have found to get it back in sync is to cart everything inside it out to my garage unit (doesn't every American have a spare out in their garage?) and shut the kitchen one off for a day or two and then restart it and it goes back to running normally for a month or 2! Trying to get by with the refrigertor in the garage sucks since it's 50 ft or so away and it's pushing 100 degrees outside now. Plus you have to carry all the stuff outside and then bring it back in!

Guess we will be checking prices this weekend for a new one as this is the last time I am dealing with this!

[zippyt]

Have the AC power looked at , have them pay special attention to the Neutral to ground power , this should be 0 but never is , if its in the .25 Volts Ac range there could be an issue with connections
And No TW i have no Scientific essays from Sheldon Cooper or Steven Hawking to site , just 20 years of observation , and a Gut feeling

[ZenGum]

Well, duhhh. Move the bloody garage fridge inside to the kitchen, silly.

I have neither qualifications nor experience, but my gut feeling is that it isn't electrical connections.

I'm imagining that there is one main cooling unit which provides cooling to both fridge and freezer, and the mechanism which distributes this between them has some kind of problem. I'm thinking the pipes which take chilled gas to the fridge block up, so that all the chilled gas goes to the freezer, thus causing the cold freezer and warm fridge. Or if there is some control mechanism to ration the chilled gas, this has a malfunction.

[DanaC]

My mum's just had to buy a new fridgefreezer. Hers is only about 5 years old. Looks brand new, no longer works. Got a guy to look at it and he said there was a leak, with the gas escaping either out of the unit, or inside the unit. No residue at the back of fridge suggests it's not leaking to the outside.

Could top up the gas. Cost of £80, and if it's leaked to the outside that would most likely be enough for quite a while, but if it's an internal leak she could be faced with a broken fridge again within a few weeks.

So. With much grumbling and loathe to give up on what was a really good little fridgefreezer that looks still brand new, she has ordered a new fridge :p

[chrisinhouston]

Actually, from what I have found in help forums for refrigerator issues my unit cools from the freezer side and the cooled air is transferred to the fridge side via some vents. Somehow the vents get blocked with an ice buildup which is why letting the damn thing thaw out always seems to fix the problem. My dilemma is that it has been happening every 2-3 months for the past 3 years! This is like the 10th or so time I have had to do this and the thing is only about 5 years old! And it was a fancy smanshy model with shiny bright thingies and smooth glide drawers!

"And inside, it's just as lovely: two shelves where none are needed, and look at that -- close the door and the light ... STAYS ON!"

[chrisinhouston]

OK, here is something else that is really putting a drag on my already not very good day!

I went to the AT&T store an hour before they opened this morning just after I found my refrigerator issue. I took a lawn chair and a cup of coffee and my Nook ebook and sat down in front of the door. I was going to be first in line to get the new Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone which was supposed to go on sale nationwide this morning. The manager shows up to open the store and tells me that they aren't going on sale today and no AT&T stores have them! Maybe next week!

Seriously thinking of suicide now!

[Lamplighter]

If the frig is self-defrosting, check the drain tube for blockage.
(Frozen peas are notorious for causing multi-million $ damages.)

[monster]

We had that problem, beest fixed it. I'll ask him to stop in and spill the beans -I think it's to do with air circulation near the vent i.e. you may have to rearrange your food.

[chrisinhouston]

So I went to my local Best Buy to look at refrigerators only to find that they are remodeling and have temporarily closed the appliance dept. and suggested I drive to a different store which I did. Jesus! These things just keep getting more expensive! Looking at the LG models with the French door scenario. But most of them were on sale for the July 4th period which starts this weekend so at least I don't feel quite as bad. Funny thing is that when we were in Wales this year and rented our flat we noticed how small the appliances are like stoves and refrigerators. I think it's because people shop more often then we do.

Will Texas state law allow me to be buried in my refrigerator? I'd like to multitask this time around.

[DanaC]

We generally have smaller appliances, because we generally have smaller houses :p

Space is at a premium in most British households

[chrisinhouston]

Originally Posted by DanaC

We generally have smaller appliances, because we generally have smaller houses :p

Space is at a premium in most British households

Yes and the cars and roads are smaller as well! I drove on some roads in Wales that were barely one car width wide! You just prayed that no one was rounding the bend going very fast.

But I do think Brits and many other people worldwide do shop more often than Americans so they don't store as much at home. I shopped mostly at a Tesco for general stuff and noticed that everything was packaged smaller to fit in the smaller fridge, like milk and other packaged foods.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by chrisinhouston

Yes and the cars and roads are smaller as well! I drove on some roads in Wales that were barely one car width wide! You just prayed that no one was rounding the bend going very fast.

Lot of the roads round here are like that :P Often bordered either side by dry stone wall. Nowhere to go lol. You just kin of hope that there's a break in the wall for a farm gate set back a little so you can pull in if anything is coming the other way.

Mum refuses to come via the back street to my house if she's dropping stuff in or picking me up, because if another car comes whilst she's waiting she has to reverse her car for a long stretch of narrow and slightly bending lane :p


You're probably right about shopping though. At least...for some parts of the States. I suspect it depends how conveniently placed the shops are. Very few people live far from shops and supermarkets here. There really isn't the space for sprawling suburbs. Some rural areas can be tricky, but even then we're not talking US grade distance :p

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by chrisinhouston

Actually, from what I have found in help forums for refrigerator issues my unit cools from the freezer side and the cooled air is transferred to the fridge side via some vents. Somehow the vents get blocked with an ice buildup which is why letting the damn thing thaw out always seems to fix the problem.

We have this exact problem. Except for us, what always happens is the vents get stuck in the open position, and everything in the fridge gets too cold and freezes. Piece of shit Frigidaire Gallery. Now the freezer side has stopped defrosting altogether, so I have to scrape a bunch of ice out of it at least once a week. Can't afford a new one, and fixing it isn't worth the money because like you said, it's just going to happen again in 2-3 months.