Is your household fridge not cooling as it should? This can be very troublesome. Food gets wasted, and your routine gets interrupted. It even leads to foul odor and health issues.
Have you ever wondered why this happens? Well, your refrigerator might have lost its frosty feel due to some setting issues or faulty internal parts. Common reasons include dirty condenser coils, blocked air vents, bad location, wrong temperature settings, and more.
Sometimes due to excessive use and not keeping up with routine maintenance will lead to problems.
Whatever may be the reason, you should not immediately walk through buying a new fridge. Instead, you must look for solutions so that you can fix your refrigerator and save some money.
Here, we have compiled some common reasons why your refrigerator is not cooling. We also added some quick-fix solutions so that you can try and troubleshoot your fridge problems on your own.
7 Reasons Your Refrigerator is Not Cooling
1. Faulty Electricity Supply
It is the most common problem for any appliance that is not working the way it should. There can be some wiring issues that cause the power to cut.
Sometimes, it can be extremely dangerous to ignore such electrical faults as they may damage the appliance. Therefore, you can call a technician to get broken cords checked.
2. Dirty Condenser Coils
The condenser coil absorbs heat and turns into a liquid through heat and gas. If you notice the food feeling warm, look at the condenser coils to see if everything is clean.
It is crucial to make sure that the condenser coils are completely unplugged so that it doesn’t hamper the cooling job of the fridge.
3. Blocked Air Vents
Sometimes ice or other elements get clogged in between and make your refrigerator cool less than usual. Ensuring that the cold air flows freely from the freezer to the refrigerator is vital without getting clogged with debris.
For fixing this issue, you can simply turn off the fridge, let the ice melt, and unclog all the debris.
4. Inappropriate Location
Keeping a fridge in warm and moist areas can affect its cooling capacity. If the refrigerator remains warm all the time, the food inside the fridge starts to rot.
When you keep your fridge right beside the gas stove, the refrigerator can trap the furnace’s heat, which can make it wear off pretty fast. So, select a proper location to keep it.
5. Frost-Free Fault
Most refrigerators, nowadays, come with a particular function that prevents frost. This modern feature is handy, but it is crucial to maintain.
This feature worsens after too much buildup. It starts making some unusual sounds and damages the refrigerator’s evaporator coils.
6. Unlimited Food Stock
When you keep loading the fridge with unlimited food, it restricts the airflow and makes the refrigerator heat up from inside.
It can damage the refrigerator’s parts, which may be difficult to repair. Ensure that the fridge gets enough airflow and stock the food in the limit.
7. Wrong Temperature Setting
If you feel your ice cream is melting and soda is getting less cool, temperature settings could be an issue. To keep everything fresh, always take a quick look at the temperature setting to avoid the worst scenarios.
You must keep the refrigerator around 30 to 35° Fahrenheit and the freezer at around 1 to 1.5° Fahrenheit.
Solutions to Fix Your Refridgerator
- Refrigerator Compressor
The compressor is an essential part located behind the refrigerator. You have to pull your fridge away from the wall and access its back to reach the compressor.
Refrigerator compressors are not so expensive. Thus, you can replace the compressor rather than repair it. While replacing the compressor, unplug the refrigerator from its power source.
- Condenser Coils
Condenser coils carry the hot gas that the compressor produces and keep the fridge cool. A blocked condenser coil can lead to poor air circulation, restricting the refrigerator from cooling.
To fix the condenser coils, you need to clean them by removing the toe grill. You can clean the coils using a coil brush and knock off all the dust and install the toe grill back.
- Condenser Fan
The condenser fan does the job of keeping the compressor and condenser coil cool. If the condenser fan is not working correctly, the refrigerator can heat up.
For this, make sure that the fan is spinning freely without any disturbance from any object. Then, check the fan motor, and if it is not working correctly, try replacing it.
- Evaporator Fan
The evaporator fan blows cool air inside the fridge behind the freezer walls. To repair this fan, you should empty all the items from the freezer shelves.
For this, remove the operator panel by removing the mounting clip and fan blade. So if any of these parts are not working, you must consider replacing the fan motor and installing it back.
- Air Damper
The air damper controls the amount of cold air blowing from the freezer to the fridge. You can find the air damper between the fresh food compartment on the side of the refrigerator. So if it gets damaged, you can remove the air damper by removing the screws and replacing it with a new one.
When to say Goodbye to Your Refrigerator?
There are instances where your refrigerator is not in a position of return or repair.
You should always look at the age of your unit and the cost of your repair services. By looking at these, you get the best indication of whether you should replace them or not.
So, whenever the repair cost exceeds the amount of buying a brand-new refrigerator, you should not waste your money. In such cases, immediately grab a new unit before you end up wasting a lot of money.
Final Thoughts
We hope that we have made you understand all the possible factors responsible for ruining your refrigerator’s cooling capacity.
Remember to cut off the electricity supply while fixing any part of the fridge to prevent yourself from severe electrical shock.
Last but not least, you should consider calling a technician to troubleshoot the root cause of the problem before doing any experimentation by yourself.
Sometimes, unnecessary investigation can deteriorate your appliance rather than fixing it up.
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