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Fridge not working. Recommend me a fairly priced appliance man/company


morabu

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My 4 year old refrigerator is not cooling. It's not making and weird noises or anything.

I need someone who's not going to charge me a stupid amount of money to diagnose/fix it.

If i can buy a replacement fridge for $700-800 i'm not paying $350-400 to fix this one.

If i can get it fixed for a decent price all the better though. i'm in Galloway.

 

Thanks,

J.R.

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If I can't fix it with a multimeter and google I usually just replace it.

 

Had a $500 stove that I traced the issue to the control board, new board by itself was $290 from the cheapest source, just went and bought a new stove.

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One simple thing to do is pull it out from the wall and check to see if the condenser is covered with dirt/dust. (the radiator looking thing with the fan blowing into it). When these get clogged up with dirt it prevents cooling of the refrigerant and thus can't continue to cool your fridge. Just a easy suggestion for you to check. I've seen TONS of freezers, fridges, etc. have this as the problem. Dirty condenser 99% of the time. To clean the condenser you just use an air blower and clean out the fins.
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What brand/type? There are a number of brands in that time frame with bad evaporators that are free to repair.

Second on the condenser cleaning, it's amazing how much dust/dirt/hair they draw off the floor.

Do Not Call capital city appliance, they suck. Look them up on BBB if you want, no company should respond to customers that way.

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it's a GE side-by-side (without an extended warranty). if i need to buy a new one (hopefully not) i'm only looking to spend about half of what your asking for your fridge Steve-O

it is a barely below ambient temps in the fridge.

i removed the panel in the freezer and the radiator is not clogged with ice.

i don't have a voltmeter and wouldn't really know what i was doing with it, if i did.

i am going to remove the rear panel and check the condenser now, i guess.

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so after removing the back, the condenser was absolutely covered with dust. to the point of not seeing any fins at all, just a cylinder of dust.

i have cleaned it out with a feather duster and compressed air. it looks WAY better. now the wait to see if it starts getting colder.

 

anything else and i'm probably going to need a reference.

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When my clothes dryer went kaput I had the same reaction. Then I got online, searched the problem and the model number and it turned out a common fail point was 2 specific solder points on the control board. Got myself a soldering kit, watched 3 youtube videos on "how to solder you circuit board without destroying it" and fixed it on the first try.

 

Total time invested: 3 hours including disassembly/reassembly, going to store for materials, etc.

 

Total cost invested: about $25

 

As someone else said, a multimeter and google have pretty much replaced the handyman in today's world.

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so after removing the back, the condenser was absolutely covered with dust. to the point of not seeing any fins at all, just a cylinder of dust.

i have cleaned it out with a feather duster and compressed air. it looks WAY better. now the wait to see if it starts getting colder.

 

anything else and i'm probably going to need a reference.

 

If this ends up being the culprit then I'll PM you the address to drop off the case of beer at :gabe: jk I don't live in Columbus.

 

Funny about this though is the fact that if you called a tech to come out before investigating and this was the problem, he would've spent 5 min blowing it out then charged you $100 :lol:

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For what its worth I was betting on it being the Condenser Too- Had to clean mine after identical symptoms 2 months back.

 

Make sure you defrost every last bit of Ice that has formed on the coils inside the Fridge.

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well....looks like it didn't fix whatever is going on.

probably something more serious (mechanical/electrical). looking up prices on a couple different sites.

Condenser - $330

Compressor - $220

Motherboard - $150

on top of an entire fridge full of food is wasted. SMDH

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Evaporator Coils (inside the fridge w/your food) are almost surely solid blocks of Ice. Hit them with a heat gun or a hair dryer untill every last bit of Ice is gone (it can take a surprisingly long time to melt all that solid Ice)

 

I'm 90% sure your problem was the dirty Condenser

which then caused the Evaporator coils to turn to Ice.

 

Exact.Same.Thing happend to me.

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Evaporator Coils (inside the fridge w/your food) are almost surely solid blocks of Ice. Hit them with a heat gun or a hair dryer untill every last bit of Ice is gone (it can take a surprisingly long time to melt all that solid Ice)

 

I'm 90% sure your problem was the dirty Condenser

which then caused the Evaporator coils to turn to Ice.

 

Exact.Same.Thing happend to me.

 

This. Once condensor is clogged, evap coils freeze up causing lack of cooling. I'd check this out then go from there. Gl.

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i wish the food was salvagable. it's all trash. i appreciate the offer though.

fridge died out sometime last night. taking off the cover inside the fridge was one of the 1st things i did. the evaporator coils had no ice on them what-so-ever.

i'm leaning toward the compressor being shot. or maybe a slow leak in the freon and it is finally empty?

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I had a fridge with trouble cooling. Compressor is easy to troubleshoot with a multimeter, just google the ohm range it should be in and the test points. Literally takes 2 minutes with the back panel off. Mine turned out to be a faulty flap that sends air to the freezer and fridge (90 bucks) and a corroded relay that provided power to the compressor (29 bucks). I got the fridge free b/c of this and fixed it myself. Definitely worth the time. It was my first time fixing a fridge so im no expert but i do have experience with wiring diagrams.
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