Here we’re talking about reasons your refrigerator is not cooling as well as it should be cooling.
There are some basic things about refrigerators that you can check and things you can’t check and we’ll cover all these.
Table of Contents
Computer is Thrown Off
Reason number one refrigerator is not cooling is that computers are the main driving force behind most appliances nowadays. The older appliances were electromechanical, the new ones are all run by computer.
So if your refrigerator is not cooling or not cooling well or not working quite right, just like your phone or your computer, where you’re going along and it’s working just fine and all of a sudden it doesn’t work anymore. You power it off, you power it back on, and then it works just fine.
The same with refrigerators. Sometimes we’ll get power bumps that will throw the computer off or something happened it just didn’t like.
One of the very first things you want to do if the refrigerator is not cooling or you’re concerned about it cooling, is pull the refrigerator out, unplug the refrigerator, let it sit for five minutes, plug it back in and then see if your refrigerator is working properly.
Sometimes just rebooting a computer will solve your problem for you.
Solution: reset your refrigerator.
Dirty Condenser Coils
The second thing with refrigerators that you can check is your condenser coils.
Every refrigerator has condenser coils. Refrigeration is kind of a misnomer, thinking that refrigeration makes things cold. It does, but in actuality it removes heat, it transfers heat from the inside of the refrigerator and moves that heat down to the condenser coils.
So if those coils get dusty or dirty or the vent holes that lead the air into the back of the unit in and out get clogged with dust and dirt, it doesn’t cool as efficiently, so it doesn’t work as well as it should.
That will slow your cooling way down. it generally won’t make it stop, but it definitely has an effect on how well it does cool and how fast it does cool the unit down.
Solution: clean condenser coils.
Air Flow is Blocked
Number three, we have airflow within a refrigerator.
In any refrigerator we’ve got several different places the air comes through, those little slots and little slits.
If the refrigerator is packed too full or something is blocking the airflow, that is going to affect how well that cools.
What we do recommend is you don’t push things all the way back to the very back and cover up those vent holes.
You leave them forward just a little bit where the shelf stops so it’s not blocking that air from flowing in there.
Because what will happen is those items will freeze where airflow is coming in and the stuff that’s on the outside does not cool very well at all. It gets fairly warm fairly quickly.
Solution: clear space for air flow.
Fans Are Not Spinning
Number four, as far as what you can check is you have different fans within the unit.
You have what’s called a condenser fan and that’s the fan that’s in the very back by the compressor and by your condenser coils.
That is what moves your air through the condenser and also cools down your compressor and that’s to help the refrigeration process.
And then you also have fans inside the unit itself and they are called evaporator fans.
Depending on if it’s a dual evaporator or a single evaporator, you’re going to have either one or two fans in your refrigerator.
If it’s a single evaporator, your fan is in the freezer compartment and it blows the air up into the refrigerator compartment, and pulls it back down into the freezer compartment where your airflow moves.
If it’s a dual evaporator, you have a fan up and you have a fan down. Each one of these fans are designed to move air within their own compartment.
If you don’t hear those fans running that section may not cool. So make sure you hold your light switches on, have a door open, listen for your fans to make sure your fans are running to see if that is possibly the cause of the problem.
At the very back you can pull it out and listen for the fan running in the back and see if you’re getting air flow in the back.
Solution: check fans and replace if needed.
Refrigerator Malfunction
Number five as far as reasons your refrigerator is not cooling at this point, it could be a refrigeration issue.
Something in the refrigeration circuit is not working. It could be something from the compressor not running or it could be a leak in the system or it could be something that one of the evaporators is frozen up.
At that point there’s not much the homeowner could do to identify what the problem is. So at that point I would recommend that you would call an authorized servicer or somebody that is trained in refrigeration.
Have them come out and take a look and see what’s actually going wrong with your unit.
Solution: have a professional check it out.