When I got into my office this morning, I found that some idiot (me) had left the door to my mini-fridge ajar all weekend. I mostly use it to keep soda cold, so there no spoilage, but I’m trying to figure out what harm this did (aside from having me drink warm soda if I want any this morning).
Is just re-closing the fridge door sufficient for a few hours? Would shutting it off, pulling the plug, etc. for a few hours help? (Iif only to cool off the motor, which must have been working pretty hard all weekend.)
What could be the result of keeping the fridge door open all weekend? I’m curious because the seal on my fridge at home is pretty shot, and I often find that the door there sometimes doesn’t close all the way unless I take care to press the door firmly so I’m sure I’ll have this problem at home at some point, unless I break down and buy a new fridge. I probably should get a new fridge every twenty years whether I need one or not, but so far I’ve muddled through.
Letting the motor cool down for an hour sounds like a good idea.
In relation to the faulty seals, they are easy to replace and don’t cost much (well here anyway). I have done it a few times for myself and friends. If you flip up the seal you will find a few screws. You unscrew them and take off the plate inside the seal, put up a new seal and screw the plate back that holds it in place. You can do it on a bar fridge in 10 minutes. Mind you I don’t know how cheap bar fridges are nowadays.
I wouldn’t really worry about it. If the motor hasn’t hurt itself by working all weekend, the odds of it dying before it can cool the now-closed fridge are pretty slim.
As for replacing the sealing around your fridge door - I’d recommend doing it. The parts are cheap and it’s a pretty easy do-it-yourself task. Since refrigerators consume a large percentage of the electricity in your home, even a small improvement in efficiency will pay for itself.
I wouldn’t think a mini-fridge’s compressor motor has variable power usage. That is it doesn’t work harder at some times than others. It’s just basically on or off.
Having the door open all weekend just means the compressor motor ran all weekend. I doubt running the motor non-stop for that long did any damage.
If it did the motor would have burned out and the fridge would be dead. Doesn’t sound like that was the case.
I left something out of my initial description, because i thought it was trivial: the fridge door was open, and one of the soda empties I’d stored on top was wedged in the opening. I figured a breeze had blown it into the slot.
But no. I had the temperature set too cold, and one of the Coke cans cooling inside apparently ruptured and the force of the explosion must have popped the fridge open, at which point one of the empties tumbled into the slot.
The fridge was filthy (and I was puzzled because I thought I’d cleaned it recently)–it turned out (I figured out) that the exploding Coke can spewed out an entire can of soda which mostly evaporated during the weekend, leaving a spattering of dried up Coke on the interior. The can itself is split open down the middle, with no soda at all inside.
Oh, well, at least I’m not the absent-minded ditz who left the fridge open!.
Does anybody know where to find published reliability specs for any compressors? I’ve been wondering the same thing as prr, lately. Surely this isn’t good for the fridge, but how bad was it, actually.
No, you’re the absent minded ditz that left the soda in the freezer too long.
The motor is inclosed in a “can” and is cooled by the gas comming back from the cooling coil. Now if the unit is low on gas then the motor can overheat.
Sounds like a can frooze over the weekend and exploded. If so your temp was set too low or you have a problem
