Diagnose our dying fridge

Out of the blue yesterday morning, it started leaking water onto the kitchen floor. It’s working, but not very well - the fridge is colder than the kitchen, but not by a whole lot, and everything in the freezer was mostly defrosted within 18 hours of the first symptoms being visible.

We have a repair person scheduled for Saturday. Last night we took the half-defrosted meat to the house of a co-worker who lives near us (luckily she and her husband are about to host a barbeque for a bunch of hungry college students who are the summer employees of his business, so they can use the meat, and I didn’t want to refreeze half-thawed meat and certainly can’t use that much myself). They lent us a couple of large coolers and some space to put refreezable things in their chest freezer.

It would be really nice not to have to spend over $1k on a new fridge right now. What are the odds that the problem is going to be one worth fixing on a 12-year-old fridge vs. it making more economic sense to replace it? (And holy cow, most new fridges are crazy expensive!)

If you took everything out, you can do this the easy way, just unplug it for like 24 hours, then plug it back in and I’ll but it starts working again (at least for a while).

No matter what’s going on (and I have a few thoughts), it needs to be defrosted/deiced, so at least get it emptied and unplugged.

From there, how handy are you?

A little handy?
Pull it out from the wall and you’ll find a drip pan that’s full of water that you can empty. BTW, once you unplug it, it’s going to drip a lot more over the coming hours, you might just want to put some towels on the floor to be ready.

More handy, you could check the freezer door to make sure it’s sealing properly. It’s too late now, if might have been as simple as you not shutting it all the way one night and it sucked in warm/humid air one night, but you can still, at this point, check the gasket.

Even more handy, gain access to the evaporator coils and (with it unplugged) and put a fan on them. That’ll thaw them in about an hour instead of 4.
It’s hard to say WHY they froze over without more details, there’s a handful of reasons why it can happen, but I’m quite willing to bet that’s what happened.

I’m not handy at all. The fridge has no frost or ice in it, so no need to defrost. The door is sealing fine. And now the freezer has kicked on again, but I don’t trust it. The fridge still feels warmer than normal.

I think this is one for the pros, but I’m curious about what the possibilities are.

Have you ever cleaned underneath it? Dirt and dust can really affect refrigeration efficiency. Otherwise, there could be any number of problems. A refrigerator is usually a closed system, without any way to check or add refrigerant, so it’s probably not a matter of lost charge, though not impossible. Perhaps the cooling fan has crapped out, or the thermostat has lost its mind, or the compressor is failing.

The ice or frost would be on the coils in the fridge. I don’t know the make or model of your unit, but on most of them you’d have to remove a panel to see them. Though there are some other options such as the freon traveling through the shelves or the heat being transferred through the walls, in both those cases it’s easier to see the frost.

Either way, that’s where the leaking water is coming from, it’s melting ice (or at the very least, dripping condensation.

Now, to be clear, if the freezer just plain broke any ‘regular’ frost that would normally accumulate might make it’s way onto your floor as it melts and doesn’t evaporate due to the heat of the compressor/condenser.

As I’m thinking this out, go ahead and pull the fridge out and make sure the coils behind/under the fridge are clear and clean of dust and debris. Get in there with a vacuum if you need to. If they’re so clogged up that they can’t move air, that’ll be a problem. While you’re down there, make sure the fan is spinning when the compressor is running.

yeah unplug and let it warm up, melting any ice that might form in the channels and walls. when it stops dripping and is room temperature then this is done.

brush and vacuum out dust on the heat exchanger; do so carefully while seeing what you’re doing to not damage the heat exchanger, wiring or tubing.

this will give the repair person a good starting point.

In our case, when we had similar symptoms, it turned out to be the cold control. It was getting stuck, and wouldn’t turn the compressor on. The cold control on our fridge was right in front, on the top, and was the control you turned to set one of the temperatures, but I don’t recall which.

We found that when it got stuck, just tapping it would get it unstuck, and turn on the compressor, and the fridge would work correctly for a few hours. The easy test was that when it was stuck and you tapped it, the fridge light would dim briefly, due to the large compressor motor current dropping the voltage on that circuit.

After tapping it to start, it would work long enough to hold temperature overnight, and we’d check again in the morning, and periodically during the day. Obviously not a fix, but it was good enough that we could order the part online, and replace it ourselves. That was maybe three months ago, and no problems since.

The part was under $100, depending on where it was purchased. Can’t tell you what labor would be.

Well, given that the repair guy is coming tomorrow and that my husband is out of town and I can’t move the fridge myself, I think the repair guy will end up dealing with it. I was just curious what the possibilities might be and how expensive they might be to fix.

Refrigerators are actually surprisingly easy to move. Many have wheels on the back side and since most kitchen floors are tile or some other smooth surface, it doesn’t really take that much muscle to push or pull it around. But I understand if you don’t want to bother with it and would rather a professional do all the heavy lifting, so to speak.

I’ve ahd similar problems with fridges.

The problem is simple.
The “cold” comes rom a bunch of freezer coils, usually between the freezer above and the chilled area below. The thermostat turning the fans on blows enough cold air from the coils into each compartment to maintain the desired temperature.
Hence, any frost condensation happens on these hidden coils, not in the freezer compartment.

There’s a timer - mechanical round thing like a hockey puck on the back of older fridges, electronic timer on newer fridges. (Down where the compressor and all the other mechanical crap is).
Every few days it tells the coils to heat instead. This melts accumulated frost off the fridge.
There’s a thin plastic pipe, that lets the accumulate frost when melting drain off down the back of the fridge into a flat wide pan under the fridge.

Here’s what can go wrong:

Timer dies; I’ve seen this on several fridges.
If it dies stuck in the melt cycle, your fridge actually becomes quite hot inside. I’ve seen this once or twice with friends’ fridges.

If it dies in cool, then you never defrost the cooling coils, they fill up with ice, and the fridge gradually becomes more ineffective. It’s cooling, but the ice blocks the airflow over the cooling coils, so no cold air circulates the fridge.
(I used to have to unscrew the bottom plate of the freezer compartment, lift out the metal plae and the Styrofoam piece, and use a hair dryer to melt the ice; then it was good for a week or two depending on humidity. Finally I replaced the timer - that’s actually quite cheap.)

Yours is a different problem I’ve had once, too.
the fans blow air through the cold compartments. they also pick up fluffy bits and blow them into the cooling coils. In my case, it was bits of onion skin; sometimes it’s wet dust bunnies. Sooner or later, these bits will clog the drain, so when the melt cycle comes along, the water cannot drain into the bottom pan. Then, it freezes again (except for an overflow that runs down inside the fridge.)
A wad of frozen ice is much less effective at cooling than lots of metal fins, so once the coils are iced over, the cooling effect is much less. This is what you see.

the solution is simple. For short term relief, find where the little plastic pipe comes out the back of the fridge. Pull it off (most fridges, it is pushed onto the drain hole stem) and clean the hole with a pipe cleaner or similar thin tool. In some fridges, you see the drain plastic pipe come first into the cooling compartment, then through the back. If the debris is too big to bell cleared with a pipe-cleaner, it will eventually clog the drain again. you need to unscrew the bottom plate, access the drain area of the cooling coil, and get rid of any clogging dirt and debris.

(If the problem was just plugged hole with no ice buildup you’d have a normal fridge but lots of water draining into the bottom of it. Since you also see ineffective cooling, the coils are drowning in ice also. )

You can probably watch your repair guy do exactly this.

If you still have the yellow “Energy Guide” sticker, look up your energy consumption.

12 y.o. refrigerators are pretty efficient (assuming its running normally); so buying a new frig literally will only save $20 - $50’s worth of electricity per year.

so repairing your existing unit, even if it will cost a couple of hundred dollars, probably will make the most financial sense.

I can try moving it, but it has cabinets all around and there really isn’t anywhere good for me to grab from. Plus I am not excited about trying to figure out the mechanicals anyway.

they also might have wheels on the front that function when the leveling legs are raised up off the floor.

For sure, if it’s a couple hundred bucks, we will repair it. But what if it’s $500 or $600? At what point would it no longer be worthwhile?

"At what point would it no longer be worthwhile? “”
Literally it’s all up to you and how much the repair will cost (biggest variable),how long the repair will last (if it’s something like replacing a condenser, the new condenser should extend the life of your refrigerator by at least 5 years) and how much you’d enjoy having a new refrigerator (like do you have to have french doors or a bigger ice maker, etc).

so option 1) repair your current frig, and spend $70 on electricity and hope that it doesn’t break down again in a few years, or

option 2) buy a new frig for anywhere from $600 to $3,000 and then save about $25 on electricity and hope that the new frig doesn’t break down in a few years.

sorry, but there’s no easy/right answer, but the repair estimate should tip your choice one way or the other.

The service call alone could be $100-$150 just to show up at the door, so you’ll hit your limit quickly if it’s anything at all complicated. If it’s the compressor, I’d just junk it. In fact, if they have to open the refrigerant system for any reason, I’d junk it. The reason I say that is that once the system has been opened, it has to be repaired, closed, and pumped down, which is basically time while the vacuum works, while the technician sits there waiting and running up dollars. Then it has to be recharged and retested. You’ll wave bye-bye to that $500 as it goes past you in a blur heading to it’s final parts and labor cost.

Short answer: if it’s not a simple fix, I’d get rid of it.

The service call is a flat $159, even if he has to come back because he needs a part. Parts are extra. I’m just trying to come up with a number past which we will junk it. I don’t care about fancy new features, and I know we won’t save a ton on energy use with a new fridge; I just want a fridge that works reliably. We already had to get rid of quite a bit of frozen food.

“The service call is a flat $159, even if he has to come back because he needs a part. Parts are extra. I’m just trying to come up with a number past which we will junk it”

If it was me, I’d say $250 (or half the cost of a new fridge)…

so with a $159 drive-out fee unless the repair is very basic (as in literally reconnecting one loose hose), you’ll probably top $300 all-in w/parts, labor and drive-out fee.

as the simplest fridge from someplace like best buy will be $550 - $600 all-in (delivery and taxes) and with a lot of 4th of July appliance sales going on right now, I’d bite the bullet, pay a little extra and just get a new fridge…and justify it by buying lots of frozen food when the deals are good and knowing that you’d be saving about $30 a year in less electricity.
Now if you (or someone you know) is mechanically inclined, (as in can change their own car oil or install a new toilet), you could try googling all your symptoms and guessing the problem and buying the part yourself from someplace like Sears or Ebay and installing it.

However as the above post mentioned, anything to do with refrigerant gets very tricky and is beyond the scope of the average DIYer.

and if you’re reasonably near Glenview, I suggest driving out to Abt.

Good prices, the staff are more knowledgeable than at the average Big Box appliance store and they price match on same items sold at competitors.

That’s who’s doing the service call. They have done well by us before (with our dryer). And unfortunately with the dryer, we found out that if you decide after the service call that the appliance isn’t worth fixing, they will apply part of the fee for the service call for a replacement. So I may well be there later this weekend.

If we replace the fridge, it’s not going to be with the cheapest possible fridge - it will be something roughly comparable to what we have now, which is the lower end of midrange. So probably in the $1200 - 1500 range.