(Possibly better in GQ but pretty minor, mundane even).
Story: when we bought a house about 18 months ago it came with a better refrigerator than we had, so we put the spare in the garage. Recently I plugged it in and started storing soft drinks in there, to make more room in the main frig. So far so good.
One evening last week I apparently failed to close the garage refrigerator completely. In the morning I noticed that it was warm rather than cold inside, so I concluded in my usual brilliant fashion that something was wrong. I turned off the motor by turning the thermostat off, and went off to work.
Apparently I still hadn’t closed the door completely, because my SO later discovered a horrible burning smell. It seems the light inside the refrigerator had been on for over 16 hours and was melting some of the plastic surrounding it. SO had the sense to actually unplug the refrigerator, and later (when it had cooled) removed the light bulb and some of the melted plastic.
Now, when I plug in the refrigerator, the freezer section (bottom drawer model) gets cold but the refrigerator section doesn’t.
Any ideas? I don’t want to spend any money fixing this thing (i.e. calling in a repairman) without having some idea of what is wrong with it and what the final cost to fix might be.
Anyone with experience or expertise?
Thanks,
Roddy
My folks had a fridge in their lake house that would get cold in the freezer and not in the bottom. I think that it was a little fan between the 2 sections that went out, maybe a thermocouple controlling the fan or something. It was a cheap and easy fix. Leaving the door open might have taxed the fan too much, I guess.
The fact that the freezer gets cold indicates that the major components are working.
That’s a good thing.
But unless you’re pretty handy, it’s not likely that you can fix it. Without looking at it (and not having more information) I would guess either the thermostat or the evaporator fan.
Is there a small blower—or blower wheel, visible? Is it spinning?
Do you have any experience with electrical circuits? You may be able to ‘jump out’ the thermostat —thereby bypassing it—to see if the thermostat is ‘calling’ for cooling or not.
Thanks, both of you. I think the cooling fan or thermostat idea sounds best. There is an obvious place where I can unscrew a couple of screws and take out the part where the cold air comes in; maybe I can see something there.
I really appreciate your perspective and advice.
Roddy
Good luck.
If you have a logical mind, it’s fairly obvious how things should work. Many people however just change parts till they get it right.
It could be the evaporator fan is bad (evidenced by it not moving) or…maybe the fan is A-OK, but the thermostat is bad and it is not “asking” for cooling. It’s for that reason I would start with the stat, and ‘jump it out’ thereby taking it out of the equation.
If you apply 120V to the fan and it won’t run, you pretty much know you have a bad fan. On a hunch, it sounds like the fan. Good luck.
I SO love whipping out this URL:
http://www.acmehowto.com/howto/appliance/refrigerator/refrigerator.php
They have how-to repair guides on other appliances and computers too.
Forgive me if this sounds insulting for I don’t intend it to but knowing myself I always fail to check the most logical cause…did you turn the fridge parts temp back up??