Fridge Maintenance

[SternWake]

I meant to make an air filter near the intake on my fridge, about 9 months ago.

But did not.

Today, I pulled my fridge out and had a look at the fan and condenser.

Caked with dust.

A detail brush cleaned the Noctua Fan nicely, and the condenser, but I decided to fire up my compressor and blow some compressed air through the condenser, and made a pretty good cloud.

I had not noticed an increase in duty cycle of the fridge, but I had not been measuring it either.

The cleaning has to increase efficiency to some degree, as there was obviously a fair amount of restriction, on both the fan blades and condenser fins.

Kind of surprising how quickly the dust builds up.

Might want to check your fridge. No need to make it work harder than it has to.

 

[caseyc]

Dang, that looks horrible, haha! I don't suppose you know if my own Dometic fridge that I got from Camping World also collects dust?? Good thing I hardly turn on my fridge.

 

[SternWake]

Fridges either use a passive condenser that just radiates the heat removed from the box, or has a forced air condenser.

Your chest Style fridge likely has forced air. It will collect dust.

How much dust is determined by how much it runs, and how much dust is in the environment in which it runs. I am a bit dismayed by the amount of dust my fans collect. It is not as easy to remove dust from my ceiling exhaust fans. They get a bit greasy from cooking and lots of Q tips and rubbing alcohol are needed.


I don't know how easy or not it is to access the cooling unit on chest type fridges.

I relocated my fan to the other side of my condenser to push air which not only makes it quieter, but allows me to remove it with 4 easy to access screws for cleaning. The Noctua fan itself is twice as efficient as the one the fridge came with.

Single best way to increase efficiency of any fridge is to make sure the condenser can breathe properly.

 

[Zil]

Both styles collect dust. One just slower than other. Condensers need to be cleaned occasionally.