Dripping-Freezing Fridge Rant

fridgefrost

What is up with the refrigerators in Argentina? They go through various freezing and thawing cycles that ruin all of our food by either a) freezing it; or b) dripping on it while the refrigerator defrosts.

The refrigerator isn’t even supposed to get icy — it’s not the freezer! *sigh*

We have lived in 4 apartments, and each has had the same issue with what appears to be fairly new refrigerators. They freeze up on the back, near the top shelf of the refrigerator (as you can see in this photo), and then they self defrost, which causes a flood of water rivulets to course down the back of the fridge, pooling on anything they can while they take their one-way trip to the produce drawer.

We’ve tried setting the thermostat (steady-state) at every level, and we have attempted to dial in the temperature depending on how full the icebox is. Unfortunately, nothing seems to make a difference.

Now, we keep the vast majority of our produce out of this vegetable and fruit killing box that resides in our kitchen. (Multiple freeze and thaw cycles wreak havoc on strawberries!) For the most part, it has become a “meat and milk box!” Oh well.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 6:11 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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4 Responses to “Dripping-Freezing Fridge Rant”

  1. Amber August 29th, 2009 at 8:43 am

    Hi, My husband (from BA) says this is common, and a pain in the butt, but the top shelf is usually reserved solely for making ice. There might be a tray at the bottom of the fridge to catch the water. He said that this was one of his chores as a kid–cleaning out the fridge.

  2. Michele August 29th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    Amber, thanks for sharing your husband’s story!

    All of the refrigerators in our various apartments have had freezers, so I don’t know why we would use the top shelf to make ice since we have a place to do that!

    On the other hand, these appliances have clearly been designed to freeze and defrost, dripping down the back, but it’s not a design that I really admire. Anything that may accidentally touch the back wall funnels water into the main part of the refrigerator, and the humidity shifts are very hard on perishables.

  3. Matt August 31st, 2009 at 7:21 pm

    Hey Michele,

    Have had this same problem, we have this horrible old fridge, and it is always dripping water, makes our food go bad really fast. I dream of buying a really fancy, nice brand new fridge that does not do that!

    Cheers,
    Matt

  4. Michele September 1st, 2009 at 9:05 am

    *laugh* Don’t know if you can buy a non-dripping fridge in Argentina. They’re designed that way it seems.

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