Being an industrialist or a house owner, you have one thing that is always working. That appliance or machinery is a refrigerator. Appliance repairs are nearly inevitable but don’t get offended. These repairs could be done by yourself and there is no need to hire a professional repair service in most of the cases. But the significant step is to understand how a refrigerator works and carry out its cooling process and then how to diagnose the problem. Let’s put some light on how to figure out what is wrong and how to repair a refrigerator on your own.
We are here to disclose everything you need to know about repairing your refrigerator or freezer by yourself. This may surprise you but the fact is that some repairs are quite easy to get done, requiring a basic knowledge about the working, and a little patience. Freezers mostly consist of two basic components. One is a condenser coil and the other an evaporator coil. A liquid coolant is circulated through these coils using a compressor or a motor. This refrigerant coolant is cooled in the condenser coil and pushing it further to flow through the evaporator. At the evaporator stage, the air present in the system is cooled by contact with the liquid-filled coil. The condenser in a refrigerator or freezer is a coil on the outside on the freezer unit; whereas, the evaporator is a coil on the inside of the freezing unit. A liquid coolant is circulated through this system by a compressor or a motor.
Repair and tests
Talking about the repair and tests you can conduct yourself, involves checking the breaker strips, capacitor charging and discharging mechanism, diagnosing compressor mounts, motor, and relay for running conditions, and condenser coils to be cleaned or not, condenser fan to be replaced, diagnosing defrost heater, thermostat or timer, replacing door seal or switch, drain tubes, and evaporator fans to be replaced or rechecked, diagnosing ice maker, leveling the freezer, checking for refrigerator leak, temperature controls and diagnosing the water inlet valve.
These are some of the repairs you can do it by yourself. Some other repairs like ventilation and refrigeration coolant could be replaced or taken care of on your own but it requires a lot of consideration and care to prevent yourself from an unexpected loss or incident. Refrigerant coolant is harmful to eyes and it may sprinkle out with pressure if you don’t handle the pipes with care.
One more thing to make certain is that the freezer is unplugged before you start your repair works. After unplugging the freezing unit, check if the compressor/motor has a capacitor; it could be placed on the top of the motor. Capacitor stores electricity even in turn off or unplugged condition. Before you go for repairs on such a compressor/motor, make sure to discharge the capacitor otherwise you may receive a severe shock. Safety should be your priority because only a safer and healthier person can do maintenance work.
