causes of malfunction and ways to eliminate them

The tight­ness of the refrig­er­a­tor is an impor­tant con­di­tion for its prop­er oper­a­tion. It will keep food fresh longer. The refrig­er­a­tor door does not close tight­ly — a fair­ly com­mon prob­lem that can lead to appli­ance fail­ure and cost­ly repairs.

How to check the tightness of the refrigerator yourself?

If you sus­pect that the door of the house­hold appli­ance does not close well, you can check its tight­ness using a reg­u­lar sheet of paper. To do this, a sheet of paper is attached to the rub­ber seal of the door, which must be tried to close. If it clos­es tight­ly, and the sheet remains hang­ing, it means that the refrig­er­a­tor has been test­ed and the tight­ness is not bro­ken, oth­er­wise you will have to look for the cause of the mal­func­tion and make repairs.

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What can be caused by a leaky refrigerator?

If the door is not tight­ly closed, warm air will enter the cham­ber. The most harm­less con­se­quence is the for­ma­tion of ice on the walls of the appa­ra­tus. The usu­al defrost­ing of the device will help get rid of the ice “fur coat”. There may be more seri­ous con­se­quences. The ther­mo­stat in such con­di­tions will not work cor­rect­ly, and the cool­ing sys­tem will con­stant­ly dri­ve fre­on. Wear and tear will cause the motor to over­heat and fail.

Possible causes of refrigerator leakage

• Over­load­ing the door shelves

In most cas­es, repairs are not required to cor­rect the sit­u­a­tion. You just need to exam­ine the cam­era and find the rea­son why it does not close. Some house­wives load the shelves on the door so much that they can­not with­stand such a load and warp. It is best to store heavy jars and food on the main shelves. Also, often the rea­sons that inter­fere with tight clo­sure are poor­ly retract­ed shelves or han­dles of pots and pans.

• Poor hinge lubri­ca­tion or wear

If the shelves are half emp­ty, and the refrig­er­a­tor door clos­es but holds togeth­er, it’s worth check­ing the hinges. Maybe it’s time to lubri­cate them? There are uni­ver­sal lubri­cants in build­ing mate­ri­als stores, but reg­u­lar machine oil will also help out. With the help of the liq­uid com­po­si­tion drawn into the syringe, loosen the fas­ten­ing screws and drop onto the axis.

• old sealant

The rub­ber seal, like the refrig­er­a­tor itself, must be cleaned peri­od­i­cal­ly. Accu­mu­lat­ed dirt is anoth­er fair­ly com­mon rea­son why the door does not close tight­ly. Man­u­fac­tur­ers of refrig­er­a­tion appli­ances do not advise clean­ing this part with chem­i­cals; ordi­nary soda, vine­gar or soapy water will come to the res­cue. Read also the arti­cle on how to change the seal­ing rub­ber on the refrig­er­a­tor with your own hands.

Also, seals wear out over time. Rub­ber los­es its elas­tic­i­ty, becomes hard, inflex­i­ble, with numer­ous cracks, changes col­or, acquires a yel­low­ish tint. You can replace the seal your­self by order­ing the nec­es­sary com­po­nent in a spe­cial­ized store, or by con­tact­ing a ser­vice cen­ter for help from a qual­i­fied crafts­man.

• Spac­er wear

The door itself will help to state this mal­func­tion — it does not close and is notice­ably shift­ed to the floor. Most often, old­er gen­er­a­tion refrig­er­a­tors suf­fer from this. This plas­tic ele­ment is locat­ed at the junc­tion of the door and the main part of the device, and is respon­si­ble for smooth open­ing and clos­ing. You can close the door as fol­lows: lift it up and slam it shut. To repair this part, you need to make an appli­ca­tion to the mas­ter to replace the spac­er.

The rea­son for a poor­ly clos­ing door may be uneven­ness on the floor and, as a result, the appli­ance tilt­ing to one side. To rem­e­dy the sit­u­a­tion, it is enough to twist the legs or place addi­tion­al sup­port under them, align­ing the device with the build­ing lev­el.

• Door sen­sor failed

How to prevent such a malfunction?

• Do not slam refrig­er­a­tor doors;
• Do not open the refrig­er­a­tor imme­di­ate­ly after clos­ing it;
• Peri­od­i­cal­ly clean the rub­ber seal.

By fol­low­ing these sim­ple rules, repair­ing the refrig­er­a­tor door is not required.

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