Did you know that refrigerators all have condenser coils that should be cleaned at least annually and more reasonably every six months? When is the last time you cleaned yours?
In the good old days, the coils where usually on the back of the fridge. Pull the fridge out, and you can hit them with the brush attachment of your vacuum or even your feather duster, and you’re done. I would still find folks whose fridge coils were a mass of dust, but what can you do?
Our new, modern fridge has the coils underneath. To begin with, you have to remove two recessed screws from the kick panel under the freezer drawer. You cannot even see them until you have your head down on the floor. You need at least a screwdriver, but a nutdriver is even better. Ready to get down on the floor? Do you have a nutdriver, or a screwdriver and a lot of patience? Cool. Once the screws are out, the kickplate is still solidly attached. You just have to pull on it, hard, and it snaps off. As long as it doesn’t snap in half and, believe me, plastic parts on this fridge start at $60 and go way up from there.
Once you have it off, you’ll see the picture above. The white metal piece seems to serve no purpose other than to make sure that the vacuum hose, even with the crevice tool, can’t reach the coils. So remove it, right? That involves laying the fridge on its side! Which means you have to empty it. Then you’d better leave it upright for 24 hours before plugging it back in, or you can fry the compressor.
This is a procedure that the consumer is supposed to perform twice a year.
I used a special brush to get to the coils, but wow! Even that was hard.
I thought it might work to try to clean them from the back, but after you remove eight or so screws and two water fittings, you get this:
Lots to clean, obviously, but no access to the coils. In other words, this was not a mistake, this was not an oversight…
This appliance was deliberately designed to clog up with dirt and then die.
—2p