It happens to us all at one time or another. One too many service trips to the “garage” to maintain the working parts of our automobile, which no longer changes gears, or maybe that 55-year-old “electric knife” that we received as a wedding present, which no longer reciprocates or oscillates or does whatever electric knives are meant to do to assist us in carving a roast.
After 22 years of mostly obedient and reliable operation, our refrigerator began exhibiting signs of inconsistency about 2 months ago. The freezer would freeze, until it didn’t, and there were mornings I would open it to find the temperature well above the freezing mark. Similarly, the refrigerator compartment's temperature seemed to be climbing steadily by about one degree a day, regardless of what I did with the temperature control switch.
The person normally in charge of “food resources” expressed impatience, anger and ultimately dismay at the risk to our inventory of perishable supplies.
I did what any responsible “ marital partner” would do and that was to seek out the Operations Manual, which was yellowing and written in five languages, 3 of which I did not speak at all; one of which I was a bit familiar with and English, in which I can say I have great fluency. Regardless of the language, the bottom line instruction was.. when in doubt as to the cause of the problem, or problems, call a professional Service and Repair Company.
Our refrigerator was manufactured by a well-known, North American Company whose name is familiar to most consumers. Several years ago, this Company was acquired by a larger Appliance Manufacturer and rolled into their operation and then, that happened yet once again. Thus, while the Brand Name still existed, the quality of current-day manufacturing was perhaps questionable. There are, however, many Service Organizations who claim to offer service and repairs to our brand and one of these we had used about 5 years ago when the refrigerator first started to perform a bit erratically.
Doctor Appliance came to our residence and discussed the problem and subsequently recommended that we change the thermostat control on our unit, and roughly $400.00 later, that “seemed” to address most of our issues, except that our “crisper drawers” worked too well and everything we put into them froze. I elected to install a thin flat insulation panel under the bottom of the crisper drawers and the top of the “bottom-mount” freezer drawer. Bottom line.. no difference. We started to avoid using the crisper drawers shortly thereafter. The beginning of the end.
