Fix your refrigerator:

The back of my fridge has no coils, and the side is warm. Do some fridges dissipate their heat differently than others?

I don't have air conditioning either, and no furnace filter because the heat is hydronic. So, those parts were easy to check.

 

That's a curious response. Care to elaborate?

 

If there are no exposed coils, there is a cover over them. It should be removed and the then exposed area vacuumed. Also, clean out from beneath the fridge, as that is where the air circulation is pulled from.

 

The back is spot welded to the rest of the enclosure. Maybe the coils are on the bottom? Still, the side is warm enough that I suspect that's how it's cooled. It's an 'all-fridge' model with no freezer, so perhaps it's designed differently.

edit: Aha! Under the little water tray at the bottom. Sneaky. We pull the fridge out to vacuum underneath every once in awhile, so the coils really weren't very dirty.

 

This almost deserves a place in the environmental discussion. I used a Kill-a-Watt power monitor to measure the effect of vacuuming the dust bunnies out from my frig's coils. It reduced power consumption 10 percent!

You can save a lot more money on older refer's by modifying the defrost circuit. Makes them about as efficient as modern "energy-star" appliances (whatever that label really means). I probably wouldn't try this in a high-humidity environment, though.

 

Something else to improve your fridge's efficiency is to leave lots of air space around it. Too many people push them right in to the wall, and pile too much stuff on top. Worse, there's often a cabinet above the fridge - the more air circulation, the better.

More insulation helps, too. I once glued slabs of pink foam all over ours, and it hardly ever ran. The off-gassing from the styrofoam probably isn't very healthy, though. Cork would be better, and nicer to look at.

 

Just a FYI for older fridges....apparently the coils aren't always in back. Me and a friend homebrew beers together. I just bought a new chest freezer to be able to make lagers. He was able to score a free old Kenmore fridge as long as we hauled it away. It had worked "well" for the original owner, but when we tried setting it up, it wasn't doing anything. After mentioning just reading this thread, we opened the only cover that was accessible: which was in the bottom back (which exposed the fan and compressor. We found that the fan had been blocked with a wire. After that, we found that the hair/dustball layer that held the coils were actually underneath the fridge: Once we got the fan going and cleaned it all out, we could suddenly feel airflow going all throughout the underside of the fridge....and it quickly dropped to refridgerator temps.

So thank you for the thread...and a bump to confirm how important it is to keep those coils clean!

 

Right, that's why I need to go out for some kind of brush. I can see that the coils are still packed with dust. I have a compressor, but I'd rather try the brush first to prevent an early death when my wife finds out I coated the kitchen in filth. She has a sense of humor but that would be pushing it.

 

Same for new fridges. We've updated a couple of things since 1939.

 

You did try the vacuum brush, right? The little round one works well.

 

Two more fun fridge facts to know and tell. Fridges run much more efficiently when they are full. (not chock-a-block full as hyo suggests). The more mass that is cold in the fridge, the easier it is too keep it cold. Air has little mass, and takes a lot of energy to keep it cold. We keep several water jugs in the fridge just to add mass.

Second, modern small freezers use the side of the case to cool the condenser, instead of conventional coils, so these freezers need air space around them. If your fridge feels warm on the side, I suspect it is using the same type system.

Icarus

 

Hmm. I don't recall saying anything about keeping the fridge full, but that's a good point. Maybe you were thinking 'chock a block full' when I mentioned 'beer fridge'?

Ah, that must be it. Would a freezerless fridge use a small coil, and a radiant case?

 

Your correct HYo, I misread you post about having air around the fridge. The point is' you also want some air to circulate inside as well,, but keep it filled with mass!

A little freezer less fridge might indeed use the case to radiate heat.

Icarus

 

Actually, it's a big freezer-less fridge; half of a stand-up freezer and fridge set. There's a small chest-style freezer in the basement, where it's much cooler and hopefully more efficient.

 

How prophetic. I didn't get to mine in time, it died during lunch today. I wasn't home, but a sudden grinding noise caught the attention of the spouse and all the cats.

Purchased in 1989, it has a horizontal layer of coils along the entire underside. These were cleaned every year or two, and were adequately clean today. But upon disassembly, sliding the compressor tray / fan / coil assembly out the back, I found another short row of coils, vertically oriented, in front of the compressor and fan. These coils, and therefore the fan, were at least 95% blocked. Unfortunately, they were not visible or accessible to the vacuum wand during normal cleaning of the larger horizontal coil layer.

An air compressor could have adequately cleared then with simple removal of the back cover, without sliding out the tray, but I lack that tool.

The compressor motor won't start, the thermal overload protection trips within a few seconds of each attempt. I don't know if the failure is motor itself or the starting capacitor. But I've been wanting to replace this with a modern efficient model for the past five years, but never found just the right model. Now we will get a new one regardless.

 

Ed and I have often talked and posted on the important topic of cleaning coils. Here are some videos that drive the point home

This dad is training his kid to be in a lucrative career

etc a four part series

I have a Kenmore bottom freezer fridge that uses the same fan/coil arrangment Ed discussed. Will try to post photos next time I have to clean it