Fridges 100% die, they’re made to now. If your fridge is really that old and you can manage it, NEVER get rid of it, tell your parents to leave it to you in their will lmao.
You will lose money this way, old refrigerators were way way more power hungry and you can easily expect to spend more than a new fridge within 5 years.
You can still get new fridges that will last for decades. It just won’t be one with LCD screens, ice machines, in door dispensers, complex internal designs, etc. Every one of those things simply creates a cascade of new points of failure, and component materials of varying ability to deal with the stress of being a fridge. You can buy new, efficient, fridges that are nothing but a box that cools, and a box that freezes, with doors. They will last for decades if you don’t do anything crazy, or your house isn’t destroyed by a natural disaster.
Depends on how old it is. Mine’s a 1995 model. I’ve measured its energy usage and a new fridge would pay for itself at around 9-10 years if I bought a basic model*. That’s around the lifespan I’d expect from a new fridge. So I’ll just keep using the old one until it dies.
(*) Current fridge is a basic, low end model, so assuming I replace with a similar basic, lower end model. Payback would be much longer if I upgraded.
Fridges actually do rest. They cycle on and off as needed to maintain their desired temperature and on average only spend about 30% to 40% of their time “on”.
I only found this out the other night because my fridge went dead silent for a long time. I thought it was borked, so I was peering deep into the freezer when I saw The Gates of Hell through the grate.
(Okay, so full disclosure, I had smoked some pot, but it totally looked like when Dana opened the fridge to Zuul before she was The Gatekeeper.) 😱😱😱
Anyways, turns out it was in defrost mode (which happens twice a day), and that involves some elements going orange or something. I know that’s vague-- I looked it up, but as I mentioned, I was high, so I only kinda remember, lol.
Edit:
The refrigerator activates a heating element located near the evaporator coil. This element warms the coils, causing any ice buildup to melt.
Glances over at my 1954 GE Combination that has NEVER been serviced outside of cleaning and replacing the light bulbs.
Funny thing, when I moved in, my last apartment had a refrigerator that was made in Yugoslavia. It died.
heh. my 15 year old frigid started making random groans the last couple weeks. far enough apart that i couldnt figure out where it came from. got lucky one day it moaned while i was close enough to yank open the freezer and see where the lever for the icemaker had accidentally got flipped to the on position. since i hadnt hooked up the water line to it, the groan was the pump sucking vacuum
Why not take the ice maker out so you have more freezer room, even filling that space with a bucket with ice will help the freezer stay colder easier if you don’t use the space. Could save energy long term and make it last longer
