Save some money and power and repair bills: go clean your refrigerator's condenser coils. You should be cleaning them every few months and you probably never have. It's really pretty easy, takes just a few minutes. Find the coils and/or grill. In old fridges they're on the back, but modern fridges put them down below, near the floor. Cut the power. Brush or vacuum the dust off. Turn it back on. Done!
I just removed a mat of dust for the first time in far too long and suddenly my fridge is much quieter. Not just running less often: my guess is the fridge has a variable speed fan that was working way too hard. (Computer heat sinks have a similar issue). Wish I'd thought to do this sooner; this kind of maintenance is the sort of life skill I'm sadly missing. Now I'm off to go replace my furnace filter.
life
  2011-08-15 23:39 Z