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Post by jake on Aug 6, 2017 4:16:24 GMT
Yesterday my Mom called me because she noticed that the area between the freezer and refrigerator doors on her 2003 Frigidaire (Model# FRT21C5AW8) felt "hot". I explained that there's a heater there to prevent condensation in the warmer weather and it was probably normal. Mom is 84 years old and tends to "panic" if she notices something out of the ordinary. She explained that it never felt hot there before. So I went to her house and checked it out. The fridge seemed to be running fine but the area around the freezer door was hot. Almost uncomfortable to the touch. The freezer temperature was +18°F. A little high I thought but I didn't know if it had just defrosted. I removed the front grille and noticed no airflow from the condenser fan. So I pulled out the fridge and removed the back cover to discover that the condenser fan blade was stuck. A mouse had gotten in there and was killed by the fan. The heater is wired in with the compressor and condenser fan motor. So what must have been going on was too much power was being pulled through the circuit with the fan motor being locked and the compressor working harder from not being cooled properly. Kinda like trying to run an air conditioner on a lamp cord. I wanted to share this experience because some refrigerators going back to the late '50s have this kind of setup. So if you encounter a very hot condensation heater, check out the compressor and fan. That may be the problem. I stayed at Mom's for another hour and the freezer was down to +6°F, compressor and fan running, and the area around the freezer door was now warm, not hot.
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Post by ckfan on Aug 6, 2017 4:20:45 GMT
Glad you caught it in the nick of time. If it had gone on longer it would have killed their fridge.
Mice LOVE refrigerators. They provide a warm place to sleep and they have a source of water for them to drink (the defrost pan). I've seen so many dead mouse carcasses in old fridges. Just another reason to get a manual defrost model lol.
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Post by jake on Aug 6, 2017 4:33:15 GMT
Lol, I offered to find Mom a 1950 Frigidaire, like mine, without any fans for critters to get stuck in. She laughed and said "That's ok I have a Son who can fix this one!"
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Post by coldspaces on Aug 6, 2017 5:41:28 GMT
LOL, Can't believe the same problem was posted here on same day, one of my oldest sons friends drove 40 mins to bring a frig tome today that had a mouse stopping the condenser fan. He also told me how hot the door frame was. The newer boxes save energy by running the condenser tubing around the freezer door rather than heat it with an electric heater. With the condenser fan stopped the tube round the door frame gets hotter than normal.
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Post by ckfan on Aug 6, 2017 11:26:37 GMT
Gill, that makes sense. I figured it would have been the condenser tubing getting hot due to no air flow. I wonder how many fridges have met their end from a simple mouse? Seems to me that putting the condenser at the rear just solves so many problems. It can't be that much more efficient to have a fan cooled condenser underneath.
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Post by blackhorse on Aug 6, 2017 17:51:51 GMT
Not more efficient at all, I don't think. Usually less, because people forget to clean the cat hair out. BUT--. If you feel compelled to build your kitchen cabinets around the refrigerator space, it stifles off the natural draft, having the refrigerator sitting back in a hole. And then pile a load of crap on top of the refrigerator, closing off what little air flow there might be. So for those applications the forced air condenser is better.
I think it's interesting that G.E. made them both ways, even back in the SO2 days. They sold natural draft units under the G.E. label, and the forced air condenser units under the Hotpoint label, right up to the day they stopped making their own compressors (seems like the '90's, wasn't it?)
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Post by ckfan on Aug 6, 2017 23:57:26 GMT
I think that eventually GE gave in and decided to offer bottom condenser coils on some of their models due to pressure from consumers. It is interesting that Hotpoint was the first GE product to test the waters with the fan cooled condenser so long ago.
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Post by blackhorse on Aug 7, 2017 3:52:55 GMT
I think that eventually GE gave in and decided to offer bottom condenser coils on some of their models due to pressure from consumers. It is interesting that Hotpoint was the first GE product to test the waters with the fan cooled condenser so long ago. "Some Say" they actually tried it some time earlier. But the helicopter blades spinning above the monitor tops proved an unacceptable hazard for tall people. . . . . .
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Post by coldspaces on Aug 7, 2017 4:02:03 GMT
I think that eventually GE gave in and decided to offer bottom condenser coils on some of their models due to pressure from consumers. It is interesting that Hotpoint was the first GE product to test the waters with the fan cooled condenser so long ago. "Some Say" they actually tried it some time earlier. But the helicopter blades spinning above the monitor tops proved an unacceptable hazard for tall people. . . . . . So for 12 years the poor Drs had to wait for their fans to be invented? connecticuthistory.org/worlds-first-helicopter-today-in-history/ Loved your comment!!
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