Now waiting to see if the heat yesterday killed my used-but-fairly-new fridge or if a simple cleaning fixed it. I saved stuff from the freezer that was melting by putting it in the (I shit you not) SEVENTY FIVE YEAR OLD chest freezer that came with the house that still works better than anything you can buy today. (Not exaggerating, there's a label on it says 1951)
I hear you re: quality, but plug it into one of those Kill-A-Watt type meters and see what it consumes, then compare it to a new model (that will not be around in 2051 …). They can be crazy hungry.
@sundogplanets
Wow! A working appliance that's older than I am!
@sundogplanets I'm imagining a freezer that, if it sprung a refrigerant leak, would cause a hole in the ozone layer directly above your house
The whole fridge seems to be dead. (Luckily partner is home now and he is slightly better at youtube/webforum-based repairs than me).
Fridge seems to be fucked beyond our ability to fix (but we're both really stubborn so not giving up quite yet). Time to eat a bunch of things for dinner that wouldn't fit into the much smaller but (again, not shitting you) SEVENTY FIVE YEAR OLD original fridge that came with the house and also still works (but now lives in the barn)
I also realized that I have to write the NOI for my NSERC grant (the main research grant in Canada) by MONDAY.
FUCK.
@sundogplanets Is it one of those old fridges that you can get locked in?
@sundogplanets One of the most horrifying things about this is that 1951 is already 75 years ago!
@sundogplanets Once upon a time - 'lo those many years ago - I lived for a summer in an old farmhouse in SE Minnesota. The house was never wired for electricity. It also lacked the usual amenities such as windows and doors.
As two friends and I worked on the house we needed to be able to cook and also keep food cool. My 'farming' grandfather bought a wood burning kitchen range at an auction for a whopping $2 and no doubt took a lot of kidding from his buddies for doing so.
For keeping food cool we scrounged up from somewhere - I kid you not - a propane powered fridge. Just one problem. The pilot light would tend to go out in the middle of the night and the lack of constant background noise would wake me up. Harsh words were spoke as I relit the pilot light.
Moral of the story - Be ever so grateful that the trusty *electric* barn fridge is still earning a living.
@sundogplanets
How many watts does a 75 year old freezer use?🙀
@Hippie Probably a lot more than the shitty new fridge.... but what is the energy cost of replacing a fridge every 5 years? (I'm honestly curious, I'd guess it's better to keep the old one running even if it sucks way more electricity, especially because I have solar panels so during the day it's not using the grid)
@sundogplanets Mice in the electrics? Earth fault?
@sundogplanets I once had a repairman in to fix the fridge and he discovered the electric outlet had turned itself off. It was a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI) outlet.
@sundogplanets That explains why you have that freezer: Too heavy to move!
@sundogplanets
I heard that the old ones uses the gases (freons?) That wrre very bad for ozone, but they worked forever. And the new ones are done in 10 years tops...
@sundogplanets Yes, but did it also contain a XX-year-old body inside it too?
If not, I'll be bitterly disappointed in all the cold-case crime dramas I've watched.
@sundogplanets I have one of those, too. It also came with the place. To amuse myself, I plugged it in. It still works.
Hopefully, it's just temporary for your frozen food. You do substantial and important work for the universe. The least the universe could do in return is keep your fridge running!
@sundogplanets
not sure what your exact issue is, but we learned that frost free freezers and refrigerators actually have a small heating element in them that can go bad. If that happens, then the frost or ice builds up and the freezer doesn’t hold in the cold. It’s actually a very cheap fix though. You may have to remove everything from the freezer and take off some of the back panels. Let it defrost then replace the heating element. We found a YouTube video that showed how.
@sundogplanets 75 years! Must have been made by Carnot himself.
