​What To Do If My Fridge Is Not Cooling?

Why is a refrigerator not cooling properly?

Evaporator and fans. The сondenser / evaporator fan is usually the cause of the fridge not cooling. To make sure that the fan works properly, you need to bypass the door switch by falsely triggering it with duct tape / finger / magnet. Once it’s done, keep the door open and place your hand on the back wall of the fridge’s inside. If you don’t feel any air coming through ventilation holes after 5-10 minutes, there is a chance that the fan is broken.

Compressor. The fridge’s compressor usually runs at least 10 – 20 times during the day and makes a faint buzzing sound when working correctly. Make sure the compressor is not louder than usual. If you do not hear any noise coming from behind your fridge, it could mean that the starter relay or compressor is faulty. To fix it install the starter first and check if the compressor starts working.

Condenser coils. Sometimes condenser coils could have tiny gas leaks or be clogged with ice or dirt. If coils do not have proper air circulation, it will affect the whole cooling cycle. That may lead to a problem when your refrigerator is not cooling at all. Coils run from outside of the fridge and run all the way inside of the refrigerator. It is usually a complex procedure to find any gas leaks in a sealed system.

Normally, those repairs are done with sealed system injections that cover small holes where the gas may leak. The holes can appear due to the age of the unit or design flaws. Unfortunately, the compressor and the sealed system will not work correctly without proper pressure and the right amount of Freon.

Damper control. Damper control is a small trap window that opens and closes accordingly to the adjusted temperature. It is very popular in new generation fridges. The damper assembly is usually located near the evaporator fan or air vents. Make sure the trap window is not obstructed because the little motor that opens a window sometimes fails.

​Simple things you can check yourself

If the temperature in the fridge is not lower than 40° / or in the freezer 0°, you should check a couple of things at first. Sometimes the solution is much simpler than it seems.

1. Check if your thermostat or control board temperature is set to the right temperature. Sometimes people change settings by accident, and it makes all the difference.
2. The refrigerator is not plugged in/fuse breaker flipped. It happens when you move the fridge and accidentally the cord can come out from the plug, or there was a power shortage that tripped the breaker. Make sure that the unit is powered. If there is no light in the fridge, then it does not get power.
3. An open door of the fridge can deactivate the door switch in the unit and therefore stop all cooling processes as a safety feature. Even a small gap of an unlocked door can lead to the malfunction of the refrigerator.
4. Most fridges have coils only in the freezer. Therefore, the cold is generated in the freezer is pushed out by the fans into the fridge section. Make sure that product boxes do not block all vents inside the fridge and air ventilation is clear.

If none of those steps helped, it’s time to call a technician!

My fridge is not cooling – is it worth repairing?

It’s really hard to say without inspecting the initial unit first, but it’s usually worth repairing old-generation appliances because their lasts much longer than new-generation ones. The fewer electronic units the fridge have the less chances that something goes wrong. Units manufactured in the 1980s are still on the run, while units assembled in 2018 already face with many issues. The golden rule is: if repair exceeds a new unit’s cost, do not repair it.