Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Fridge defrosted!

Can you imagine you wake up in the morning and found that the food in the freezer compartment is almost thawed ... Thanks God that I didn't have much thing in the freezer. So, first thing I check (or rather hear) was the compressor. Ok, it was still running. Then I found that the blower fan was dead! Old problem has returned, ie, the water discharge tubing is blocked and has prevented effective discharge of water from the cooling element.
This also means that the cooler coil compartment is frozen with ice and the ice had blocked the moving fan. This time, I decided to "service" it myself. I removed the two screws, and pushed the cover forwards to completely dislocate it...
... and expose the coiling coil and fan at the back. Checking the base, I immediately confirmed what I have suspected - frozen cooling coil compartment. The task now is to defrost the ice and clean ...

...the discharge "catch" which is in the lower compartment of the fridge. The discharge tubing was blocked due to years of usage. After cleaning everything, I just reassemble everything back and bingo...my fridge is working again....hehehe, the fridge guy will not make money from me this time. Total effort was about 70 minutes. The ice was partially defrosted when the base was open.

For your information, this fridge is now 29 years old. You will notice that the cooling coil is made of copper tubing whereas the modern ones are made from aluminium which corrode easily. I bought it in Singapore while I was working there and it was made in Japan. It is healthier than my 9 years old fridge, eg, the seal on the freezer is still so strong that I need to pull real hard to open it whereas the new fridge can't even hold properly!

Tip:
Next time when you send your fridge for service, you must make sure that you specifically ask to have the drain pipe to be blown clean. Before they send it back, make you ask to ensure that this is done. Otherwise, the fan will be blocked by ice and within a short time, it has to be sent back to the service center. A "problematic" fridge can frustrate you and you would want to change a new ones.

6 comments:

Ensurai said...

William
Can I call you when my fridge malfunction?
Wow 29 year old fridge - must be well taken care off and a lasting brand made in a good country!

Reanaclaire said...

WOW..29 years old and still growing strong, huh.. well, that sums up that old fridges are more "tahan" than the latest fridges assembled nowadays..

William said...

CY: Yes, you can always call me and I will speak encouraging words to you! Hahaha...

CY and Claire: It just continue to run without problem. It has been serviced twice. Once they changed my blower fan which I don't think was faulty. They also change a broken capacitor.
The last service was when the blower stopped and I gave them to service because I don't know how to open the cover. Now, I learned the trick and that is the end for them!
Worse, they only defrost and didn't clean the tubing! Very upsetting with them.

Jean said...

useful tips! thanks! =)

wenn said...

u really take good care of the fridge..

William said...

SJ: Record of my experience to benefit my readers! At least my reader go away learning something useful.

wenn: I just use it lah...hahaha. The more you use, the better it is.