Fridges don’t come cheap, and when you buy one, the last thing you want is to damage it. As a homeowner looking to have your fridge for as long as possible, you must be wondering, what can damage a refrigerator? According to refrigerator repair experts, the fridge can be destroyed by plenty of things that include:
This often happens when you come back from the grocery store. Since you don’t want any fresh groceries to spoil, you put everything in the fridge, which is wrong. When you put more items than the fridge can handle, you make it difficult for the refrigerator to regulate the interior temperature and keep the insides of the appliance cool.
This provokes the appliance to work harder than it should, putting a lot of strain onto the compressor and condenser coils, which puts the fridge at the risk of overheating.
How can you prevent this from happening?
As you are putting your groceries in the fridge, leave enough room for air to circulate freely, so you aren’t overburdening the appliance. A good rule of thumb is to keep your fridge 75% full.
Another great idea is to remove the old food before you go grocery shopping. This way, you always have enough room to stock the new fresher items.
Failing to clean the fridge regularly.
People rarely clean their fridges either due to their busy lifestyles or ignorance. When you let food spills and other debris accumulate, the refrigerator seal, compressors, and other parts degrade and crack.
This results in the fridge working too hard to cool the interior, which not only leads to an increase in your electricity bill, but the fridge also has a short lifespan.
Thankfully, it’s easy to fix this problem. Clean the fridge at least once every two weeks and when doing it, clean both the inside and outside of the appliance.
You store the food improperly.
It’s one thing to overstock the fridge and an entire ballgame to improperly store the food. For example, you will be storing the food improperly if you move the hot leftover food directly from the dinner table to the fridge.
In addition to the food spoiling, it can also spoil the fridge. This is because you expose the fridge to too hot food, forcing it to work harder than it should.
You can avoid damaging your refrigerator this way by giving your leftover food time to safely cool on the counter then carefully place it on your fridge.
Failing to replace the water filter frequently enough.
If your fridge has an ice and filtered water dispenser on the refrigerator door, you should regularly clean the filter to keep your drinking water and ice-free of contaminants and prevent sediment from building up in the pipes.
When you have debris in your pipes, your fridge works harder than it should; hence you have a high energy bill at the end of the month. Also, the fridge has a short lifespan due to its overworking.
Replace the water filter at least once every six months to keep your fridge in top working condition. You should note that even if you have an ice maker and no water dispenser, you still need to change the water filter to have peace of mind, the ice is free of pollutants.
Failing to inspect the fridge regularly
Like any other appliance, you need to inspect the fridge routinely. You can inspect it by yourself or hire a technician to help you.
Most people will inspect the other parts and forget a vital area—the door seal. When you don’t inspect the door seal frequently enough, it deteriorates, gets brittle, and cracks. This causes it to break down, and it doesn’t properly seal in the cool air.
As you might guess, this leads to a massive loss of energy as the fridge has to work harder to maintain a cool interior.
Whether you are doing the inspection by yourself or you have hired an appliance repair Fairfax professional to do the work, pay attention to the door seal, and look out for any signs of wear and tear or cracking. If your door is no longer resisting as much as it should when opening it, and the suction feels week, it’s time to replace the seal.
