Hi lemmings!
Moving into a new flat soon and will need to buy both fridge and freezer preferably in one combined unit. Been looking at the side-by-side ones. Anyways Ive got little to no knowledge about fridges and freezers and was wondering if there are any typical “gotchas” to look out for?
I am based on the EU and would prefer to buy from an EU brand too. Any recommendations or tips are plenty welcome!
Thanks as always ☺️
most or should i rather say all of fridge nowadays has “auto defrost” systems that lets you forget about drain pans. Initially, most would think that it is a neat design in which the heated freon pipe passes over the drainpan and evaporates the defrosted liquid/water.
unfortunately, thats a very nasty design, its like a ticking timebomb that forces you to purchase a new fridge every <10 yrs
the copper freon pipe would go on a cycle of heating up, getting exposed to water, dries up and repeates the cycle over and over. Take note that metal + water + air = rust
and these rust can cause freon leaks and makes your fridge useless, also, these fixes costs like MF(almost half the price of a bnew fridge)
I would advise DIYing a flexible tube on its drain hole and routing it on a condensate pump, I would not advise routing it to a sewer line because nasty sewer gas will get in the fridge.
My auto defrost fridge celebrated his 17th anniversary the other day
A lot of units now a days have a plastic coating on the discharge gas pipe which mostly prevents the corrosion issue. I am a refrigeration mechanic and while the condensate pan is one of the first areas I check for leaks, it also isn’t the most common area. It probably ranks in third place for frequencybof leaks on reach in units. I probably get 10x more leaks right in the evap coils. People just tend to notice the condensate pan leaks more because they’re on the high pressure side of the system so they’re going to be quick and relatively dramatic. Evap leaks can fly under the radar for years because they’re usually small and only result in gradually worsening performance.
There are also alternative condensate pan designs which use sheets of a wicking felt like material standing up in the condensate pan to increase the surface area for evaporation. That plus the warm air from the condenser fan can often work just as well as the discharge gas heated pans without the corosion issues. The reason that more companies don’t do that is because using the discharge gas for evaporating condensation also means that you’re using the condensation to precool the discharge gas so it slightly boosts the efficiency of the unit.