Are you looking for a good refrigerator mystery? See if you can help us solve this one

Parent Cafe
1

I’ll start with the basics and fill in based on any questions folks may have.

For 20 years, we had a great refrigerator…I can’t even recall what brand it was (it came with the house) but I loved it in that i never thought about it. it did its job.

It passed away and we had to buy another…refrigerators have changed a lot in 20 years and we ended up with a beauty…a high-end LG with astonishing LED lighting and superb space. For 10 days, we loved it. Right before Thanksgiving, the freezer stopped working and everything defrosted. The tech guy scheduled us for 3 days in the future and 2 1/2 days later, the freezer started working again. he did a diagnostic on the whole thing and said, well, it’s a mystery but its working now.

Two weeks later, freezer dies. A new motherboard is put in.

9 days later, freezer and refrigerator go on the blink. A completely new compressor is put in.

6 days after that, entire refrigerator dies. 4 new parts have been ordered and they’re being installed Friday.

We’ve had the refrigerator a grand total of 11 weeks.

The LG help desk guy (who we have really gotten to know) says it’s better to figure out how to fix this one rather than replace it because it’ll take 4 weeks for the replacement paperwork to go through and even then there’s no guarantee. At the moment, we have no refrigerator at all…another month of this is hard to imagine.

So (here’s the mystery part, folks!): A smart tech friend of my smart college kid comes into our kitchen, hears the story, and says, “it’s not the refrigerator, it’s how the electricity is coming into the house.” So that made me stop. Two of the 4 failures have come after the electricity went out (a snow storm and then we had to turn off the electricity for a house repair) though the other 2 haven’t. And this is one powerful refrigerator…it’s always doing something.

I’ll stop here…but what are your theories?

2

We had a problem with one of the 110V legs coming to the main. Basically we’d have random brownouts in the house. This destroyed two simple standup freezers. The utility company eventually paid for a partial replacement.

We had other symptoms - things like lights dimming and computers freezing.

I’d check the electrical source at the main, make sure it is stable.

3

This sounds a little familiar. We had issues with our dryer. They sent someone out a couple of times, and finally one of the guys figured out is was the current going to the appliance or something like that.mwemhad a circuit breaker replaced, and all was good.

4

And is your fridge on its own circuit as well?

Agree…you need someone with a voltmeter to check what’s coming in.

5

Wow–sounds awful. I hope you will please post whatever the final solution is. It’s terrible you’ve lost food and not had a working fridge & freezer for so much of the past 11 weeks!

6

My in laws burn through appliances like you would not believe and they’re convinced its the electricity too. I can’t remember exactly what it is – whether the voltage level spikes up or down or what.

I’ve owned 3 refrigerators in the 21 years I’ve been a homeowner. They’ve owned at least 10.

7

For any appliance with computerized components, buy a flat surge protector. Lowes has them for under $10. One flash of lightening fried the board in my dryer. My son installed a new one and put on a flat surge protector for both the washer and the dryer. He didn’t want to do any more repairs.

Also try googling your brand and model + issues and again with complaints and see if others have the same problem. Otherwise the store where you bought it should replace it under the uniform commercial code. A product is fit for the purpose for which it is intended. If it repeated stops working, then obviously it isn’t.

8

We just got a new LG fridge after ours died last week. Bookmarking this in case anything happens to ours.

9

My service contact at Lowe’s described the three strike rule. If I needed a 3rd service call, I’d get a replacement. (The first tech was incompetent, couldn’t recognize a thermostat issue. Luckily, the better tech who came next, a different independent, is a keeper.) Why not replace, after having an electrician check capacities?

10

And your old fridge was on the same circuit and did none of this madness? Wow.

11

Unfortunately the old fridge probably did not have all the fancy electronics the new ones have. After I had a $500 motherboard get fried on my old range, I swore whatever I got to replace it would have no electronics. It’s a chef’s stove, but all analog. I love it.

12

Yup. The fancy electronics on a fridge are pretty much garbage.

13

My first thought is power surges. Like one of the posts above, I’d try a heavy duty surge protector.

But, if I was experiencing as many issues as you have and didn’t know/think it was related to the wiring/electricity coming into the house, I’d be calling up whatever retail store sold it to you in addition to the LG customer service people.

14

I agree with the smart kid. How old is the house? I think you need to hire an electrician.

15

If you repeatedly subject it to the wrong power supply, it isn’t the device manufacturer’s fault.

16

Do your lights dim when the fridge comes on?

17

thanks for these ideas, folks. A bit more detail on the electrical angle…it’s a late 1920s house…but, on the other hand, it has two new AC units and a new gas range (as well as normal items) and we haven’t see any performance issues with that. On the other hand, this is a pretty high-tech refrigerator…really, it’s a mainframe in our kitchen…yes, keeping the milk cold but it appears to have higher aspirations. So maybe it was the appliance that tipped us over.

Or maybe it’s just a lemon. It can happen…maybe the 4 new parts going in now will help :slight_smile:

18

You can also buy a whole-house surge suppressor, installed at the main panel. If you do buy a power-strip type of surge suppressor, be aware that not all are built equally. They have various specs, and generally you get what you pay for. Surge suppressors do what they say, reduce surges. There’s also a different type of gizmo called a power conditioner, which smoothes out power delivery. I have one for my home audio system and tv, which is generally where you see them. They’re quite a bit more expensive than a power strip, but a good investment for expensive a/v equipment (and maybe expensive refrigerators in old houses).

I remember when I was little, whenever there was a blackout my parents would send us running around the house unplugging all the appliances. Anybody else ever do that, or were my parents just being overly cautious?

19

If you repeatedly subject it to the wrong power supply, it isn’t the device manufacturer’s fault.

Since they are not having issues with any other appliance or brownouts, most likely it is the appliance. After doing some online research on the issue with that brand, they are not the only ones who has had trouble.

20

@anomander funny you should bring that up…our local power company just sent out an offer to install a whole-house suppressor and we decided to go for it. It’s $9 a month which adds up but, what the heck, it’ll give us peace of mind.

@GloriaVaughn you’re likely right…that its the appliance and not the outlet…since nothing else is having issues.

Here’s what has been done so far:
Complete diagnostic check-up
New motherboard
New compressor
Going into today: Air inlet damper, sheath heater, condenser fan motor

Our neighbor said, “the only thing you haven’t tried is painting the refrigerator a different color.”