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General Discussion => Share Your Badassity => Topic started by: Manguy888 on May 02, 2017, 02:12:20 PM

Title: I fixed my fridge!
Post by: Manguy888 on May 02, 2017, 02:12:20 PM
This weekend, my refrigerator stopped working. The freezer was fine the but refrigerator compartment was warm. Our first instinct was to call a repair place and pay extra to expedite the work - our food was going bad!! Or maybe we should just get a whole new fridge, it's almost ten years old at this point.

My wife was on the 'new fridge' bandwagon at first, knowing we can afford it, but I changed her mind after I argued that it would be dumb to put this giant object in a landfill if only one tiny little part was broken. She locked onto this reasoning immediately (teachable moment 1: different people have different motivations when it comes to frugality).

Then I decided to research on my own. Based on some super simple troubleshooting, it looked like the evaporator fan wasn't working - probably a bad motor. So I learned on youtube how to take the fridge apart, then did my best to order a similar looking motor. In the mean time our neighbors let us use the fridge in their garage and gave us a key (teachable moment 2: knowing your neighbors is good for frugality).

The motor came in Monday, and I installed it in about 20 minutes. So for $50 and about 2 hours of my time, I avoided a $200 service call or a $800 new fridge bill (at least).

Third teachable moment - I love cheap, simple appliances. This fridge has no ice maker, no water feed, no "control board". Because of this, it's so easy to fix.
Title: Re: I fixed my fridge!
Post by: Miss Piggy on May 02, 2017, 06:18:10 PM
Good for you! Excellent story.

Our fridge temporarily stopped working last week. It normally wouldn't have been too big of a deal, but my husband just got out of the hospital for pneumonia, and we had thousands of dollars worth of home IV drugs in that fridge.

Watched a couple of Youtube videos, somehow reset the sensor, and it seems fine. Knock on wood.
Title: Re: I fixed my fridge!
Post by: Manguy888 on May 03, 2017, 08:17:12 AM
Nice work Miss Piggy! Even if these fixes aren't permanent, getting more time out of your appliances is worth the effort, especially if you have crazy expensive drugs in the fridge. Ideally I'd replace my fridge on my terms, after careful research, not with a split second decision because the thing broke and my food is going bad