Refrigerator Issue

[contender buff]

Sounds to me that the starter relay is weak, on its way out.

 

[striker55]

I have had good experience with Kenmore and Frigidaire.

When I bought my current home, the former owners left a side-by-side Frigidaire in the kitchen. At the time, I was still working in the Houston area, and driving from Laporte to East Texas on an almost weekly basis. The “ice/water through the door” did not work. Neither did the icemaker - which I later removed and just bought ice trays. It was just fine for a weekend place and I actually kept it for the first two years I lived here full-time.

I figured it was about 15 years old at the time. It still kept food cold/frozen and it was just me - so no complaints from a Mrs. Then, it started “peeing on the floor “about once a month with no warning, I would walk by and step in a huge pool of water in front of the refrigerator about once a month. I researched and tried everything and nothing worked. So, I put a towel in front of it and just threw the towel in the washing machine when it had soaked up that months “pee”.

I finally got tired of that and bought another Frigidaire that Conn’s had on sale - a SS side by side - no door access, no ice maker, for about $900 tax and delivery included. I’ve had it about two years and, so far, it has worked flawlessly with zero issues.

When the new one arrived, I moved the old fridge out onto the patio, transferred my refrigerated groceries into the new one once it cooled down, and left the original one unplugged for about two weeks.

Talking to a friend of mine after I had gotten the new fridge, she said she had the same problem with her Samsung refrigerator and struggled with it for months. Repair man told her that it was an issue with the thawing feature on many refrigerators, and to unplug it for at least 24 hours. Once she plugged it back in, she no longer had the problem with it peeing on the floor..

Guess what, I plugged in my old “porch” Frigidaire and it has been running for almost 2 years without ever peeing on the floor again!

Many of today’s appliances and gadgets can be restored by a reset. You might want to try it on that faulty fridge.

Sorry for the long post…

My power is currently “off” and I just stuck my zero-turn in the ditch - so I had a few minutes….

We had a refrigerator that would leak water occasionally. I looked around and the defrost would empty water in a catch bucket, from there it was supposed to evaporate. It would fill and overflow, I put a rubber tube attached to a hand pump. If I remembered to pump it out no problem. When we gave it away I gave the guy the pump. He was putting it in his garage.

 

[majormadmax]

Our Samsung started leaking water, my son heard a slight "hissing" noise the other day and this morning there was a puddle underneath.

Turned out to be a leaking water inlet valve. Found one on Amazon for half the price of the other online sources, and it will be here on Tuesday. It's a ten minute fix, with the toughest part being pulling the fridge out!

 

[benenglish]

As far as I have been able to ascertain, there are two kinds of reliable refrigerators available these days and they're both very expensive.

 

[skfullgun]

Come on, Ben, just admit it. We all know you use one of these.

 

[tedwitt]

I have the Frigidaire gallery, ice and water in left door, freezer on left side. Replaceable water filter.

 

[Lead Belly]

 

[benenglish]

Come on, Ben, just admit it. We all know you use one of these. View attachment 446533

Once upon a time, I wanted a pretty icebox to repurpose as a storage cabinet. Not any more, though. Another potential project to put out of my mind. There have been more and more of those as the years go by.

 

[SARGE67]

Sounds to me that the starter relay is weak, on its way out.

Thanks for all the responses. I'll have a tech come out and check the relay especially. I placed this in the fridge to check temp and shows 40 degrees past two days. I'm afraid the compressor is working too much and if it's the relay, the compressor will give up the ghost soon.

 

[skfullgun]

Once upon a time, I wanted a pretty icebox to repurpose as a storage cabinet. Not any more, though. Another potential project to put out of my mind. There have been more and more of those as the years go by.

I can certainly relate.

 

[striker55]

Thanks for all the responses. I'll have a tech come out and check the relay especially. I placed this in the fridge to check temp and shows 40 degrees past two days. I'm afraid the compressor is working too much and if it's the relay, the compressor will give up the ghost soon.

Probably a stupid question but you did check the coils in the back? When we were first having trouble pulled out the fridge and couldn't believe the dust around the coils, never checked in 5 years. We now know to clean the coils at least once a year.

 

[jonevill]

i had an old freezer that pretty much ran all the time. I had a technician come out and replace the thermostat. It still ran most of the time. I bought a new smaller freezer. My electric bill went from around
$ 130 dollars a month to about $94 dollars a month.

 

[mroper]

Avoid one with the ice dispenser and water in the frig side of the door, that always seem to have problems. Midea makes alot of the refrigerators now. LG and Samsung seem to have the most reported problems

 

[no2gates]

Avoid one with the ice dispenser and water in the frig side of the door, that always seem to have problems. Midea makes alot of the refrigerators now. LG and Samsung seem to have the most reported problems

Yeah, I have a Samsung like that. The icemaker went out just under the warranty period. They sent me a new one. A different issue with the ice maker cropped up about 6 months later. Decided to get a countertop icemaker which has been working great.

 

[Brains]

Ice maker on mine stopped working too, replaced it for 35 bucks. Fixed the original for $0 once I understood how it worked, so now I have a spare.

 

[OutlawStar]

Propane is an efficient refrigerant and appliances don't hold that much (one of the reasons so hard to work on). Some of the new "freon" mandated by the feds starting next year are moderately flammable. I'm not sure what that means...

I was going to call shenanigans on both of you and looked it up: isobutane or R-600 is being used because its CFC free. Basically bending to the EPAs rules of not using good freon anymore. On the surface it sounds scary as hell that propane or butane is in an electronic appliance inside your house, but in reality its probably a total of half a pound of "freon" and not likely to be the cause of an inferno. Not to mention your car parked in your garage (if you're not a savage) has miles of electrical and gallons of flammable gasoline, that little bottle of spray oil usually has a flammable propellant and atomized oil is very flammable, hair spray, spray anything usually has something flammable in it. Read the labels of anything you can spray, sometimes it lists the propellant as isobutane.

I also recall in my formative years a rumor of auto-repair shops in Mexico using "propane" instead of R134 (or whatever) because it makes your car's AC colder than anything else available. Of course people ask what happens in a car crash, wouldn't that propane catch fire? Probably, I haven't 'played' around with propane to know if its simply explosive in a system like that, or if 3-7lbs is and actual flammability issue. I have seen those 1lb camping bottles shot at with tracers, and it seems more explosive than anything, especially under pressure like that. I wonder if an AC tech might be able to enlighten us about "propane" being used in closed loop systems like that.

 

[Fishkiller]

Ammonia is used as the refrigerant at most all large cold storage warehouses, ice cream plants, frozen food producers etc. ammonia is highly flammable but a very efficient refrigerant. Sometimes one of these plants goes boom.