My fridge broke. Have a heart..Help me. Please.?

Question

The fridge in my basement just broke. it's sending out like warm air instead of cold and all the extra food is going bad..im a 16 yr old kid and idk how to fix it .. i dont have a dad and my mom refuses to call anyone becuz she thinks it'll cost over 500 bucks for someone to fix it. please help me. i really don't want the food to go bad. i need this fridge. i've got like maybe a hundred bucks and no idea how far that would get me.. i turned the dial up to the coldest possible temp ..and im still only getting warm air..

Answer 1

Have her rent one from Rent A Center for a few weeks.  It'll be cheaper than letting the food spoil

Answer 2

A friend of mine does HVAC work.  He refuses to work on household refrigerators.  Commercial refrigeration uses copper piping.  This is relatively easy to charge/repair using standard refrigeration tools/methods.  A household refrigerator uses steel tubing that must be welded.  There are typically no access ports and the units are then more difficult to work on.  

It sounds to me as if a blower may be working but the refrigeration is not.  Often household refrigerators don't have any blowers in them.  The refrigeration might not be working due to faulty controls, bad compressor, or it is low on gas.  Any of these are probably beyond your level of knowledge, skill, and available tools.

If the seal around the door of the fridge is intact, keeping the door closed will keep the cold in longer.  Keeping a bucket of ice also inside will help it to stay cold longer.  Eventually you will either have to consume or give away the food quickly or transfer it to another fridge.  

I am sorry to say that the fridge is possibly not worth fixing.  The cost of diagnosing the problem and replacing parts may be more than the cost of a used fridge.

Answer 3

If you have a cooler, put the stuff in the cooler to keep until you can get the thing fixed.

Get the brand name and model number from the machine, and check the net for any troubleshooting ideas. If that doesn't work, then try the handymen in the area, they may be able to do the work and not charge you as much. If you know anyone who is good with tools, and has worked with appliances before, they may have some ideas.

Do you hear it humming? I don't know much about refrigerators but I do know they use a compressor to circulate a gas around the box to cool it down. It may be either the compressor or the coils. Good luck.

Answer 4

i had a problem similar to this once.  take a vacuum and clean the entire back so it is free of dust. it worked for me

Answer 5

Do you have any ice in your frezer part? By ice I mean is it icing over on the walls and top of the freezer if you do it could be the freezer fan is frozen or needs to be replaced. turn the freezer control down and see if you hear the fan kick on in the freezer. It will be at the back of the freezer If you don't hear it kick on or if it's not running and you still have ice in the freezer part it just might need thawing out What the freezer fan does is help circulate the cold air from the freezer down in to the refrigerator part. That is what keeps your food at the right temperture in the bottom part of your refrigerator If the fan is not working everything in the refrigerator will start thawing out.

This fan must be working to keep an even temperture on the bottom. If you don't hear the fan running. First of all try to put all of your food in a large cooler with ice before you unplug the refrigerator and do what the one guy said by cleaning the condensor coils on the back of the frig with a vacumm cleaner Also take off the bottom pannel at the bottom of the refrig and clean the coils under the front of the refrig. When you are done cleaning plug the refrig back in and see if you can hear the Condensor fan running in the back see if you can feel cold air blowing inside if you don' t then.unplug the refrigerator or turn off the power at the house circuit breaker if you know what breaker your refrig is on just kick off the breaker switch and see if you hear it go off or open the door and check if the light doesn't come on to make sure you have the power off.

Only if you had ice forming on the walls and the bottom of the freezer when you first realized that it wasnt cooling proper do you need to do this and if you didn't hear the fan running in the freezer. Now, look and see if there are any screws on the back of the freezer wall. remove those screws very carefully and put them in a cup or somthing to hold them in. In some refrigerators the screws may be along the side of the bottom of the freezer floor. Once you have removed the screws remove the back pannel or the floor pannel of the freezer depending on where the screws are placed. once you see the little fan at the back of the refrig take your finger and very carefully try to turn the fan blade manually. If you can't then the fan is probably going to have to be replaced If the fan is frozen with ice be very carefull and see if you can chip it off of the blades.

I thawed mine out with a hair dryer once but I don' t want you to try that unless you have a responsible adult with you. By this time you should know whether the fan blades are free. try to get all of the excess ice out of the freezer.If there is ice on the little evaperator coils you will need to carefully remove the ice from them too The little coils will run the length of the floor or back wall of the freezer  Once you think that the fan is free to run and the coils are free of ice put the pannels back in place just like you removed them and reinsert the screws.

Turn the breaker back on and plug the refrig in. If you can hear the fan running in the back of the freezer then it should not take to long to start cooling the bottom of the refrig. If it doesn't cool again and you can hear the refrig running then the condensor is either bad or it is low on freon which in that case it would be better to call a service man. I would think that it wouldn't cost anymore than $75.00 to add freon. If the condensor is bad then like the other guy said renting one would be your only option because it would cost to much to fix the one you have.

I sure hope that things work out for you. I wish I could help you more but that's just about all I can do with out not being able to check your refrig.

Answer 6

buy those tiny fridges at wal-mart for 60 - 100 dollars + tax

and use that until your mom could afford another one

unplug your fridge right now to stop the warm air, and so the cold air can stay in there longer and keep the door shut so the food will not go bad

Answer 7

For a 100 bucks you could get a used fridge.