5 Refrigerator Maintenance Mistakes You’ll Want to Avoid
Taking care of your refrigerator can be rather tricky. This is because there are a slew of pitfalls that you can easily fall into that will affect your refrigerator in a negative way. To help you deal with this, we thought it would be useful to put together a brief article on these common mistakes. If this is something that you want to learn more about, read on for five common refrigerator maintenance mistakes that you’ll want to avoid.
Poor Ventilation
Refrigerators need to keep food inside at food-safe temperatures, and part of the way they do that is by expelling heat. Poor ventilation means that these units cannot properly use the vents to expel the excess heat from the refrigerator. An accumulation of dust and debris in the refrigerator vents can also cause them to clog, which hampers the release of hot air. This causes the unit to malfunction and the temperature inside the fridge to rise.
Leaving the Fridge Door Open
Don’t leave the refrigerator door open for long periods of time. The cold air inside could seep out and make it difficult to keep the refrigerator cool. When the refrigerator door stays open for too long without someone to close it, or when door gaskets fail, the interior temperature rises, forcing the motor to work harder to maintain the optimal cool and food-safe temperature. Over time, this leads to complications, which can break down the refrigerator’s motor.
Overstocking
Commercial refrigerators give you plenty of room for storing your groceries, but you can still run into capacity problems if you try to cram too many things inside. Each refrigerator is rated for what cubic volume of storage it can handle, and simply closing the door does not mean that you’ve met that rating. When you’re storing groceries, make sure that there is enough room in the fridge for cold air to circulate and cool the whole cabinet. Organize items properly so they don’t block the vents.
Refrigerating Warm Food
Hot, freshly cooked food should not go directly into a commercial refrigerator—at least not until it has cooled down enough. Once food has cooled sufficiently, place it in the refrigerator so that the interior temperature is constant. Placing hot food inside the refrigerator forces the unit to work harder to stabilize the temperature. This may be harmful to the quality of other perishables inside.
Low Temperature
There are now automatic thermostat controls built-in to many commercial freezers. If a manual thermostat is available, avoid setting the temperature too low—the thermostat should be self-regulating to ensure the correct temperature. Avoid setting it too low, since frost will form in the cabinet. Make sure to check the manual and ask a professional technician about the optimal settings.
Conclusion
We hope this article proves to be useful when it comes to helping you take better care of your refrigerator. As you can see, there are a multitude of mistakes that you’ll want to avoid in order to keep your refrigerator in good working condition. Be sure to keep everything you learned here in mind so that you can make the most informed decisions possible to take best care of your refrigerator.
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