Fingers Crossed

The refrigerator repairman was here again this afternoon with the correct compressor in hand. I’m so grateful Ivan was willing to come out on a weekend. He got the compressor installed and the fridge is currently making its way towards cool. Here’s hoping that it both cools appropriately and keeps working. We need to let it do its thing for about twenty-four hours before things will stabilize but being able to actually use the fridge for its intended purpose rather than having a giant, super expensive magnet board taking up real estate in my kitchen would be nice. 

(Rolls Eyes Dramatically)

I saw a t-shirt once that read “I rolled my eyes so hard I saw my brain.” I wish I had purchased that shirt, because today would be a great day to wear it. It would perfectly describe my feelings about the continuing saga of our fridge. 

When last I posted, the replacement parts for the repair of our brand-new fridge were on order. They arrived in due time and the repairman was scheduled to complete the repair today. Ivan, our repair guy, showed up right on time and proceeded to get started. He pulled out the faulty compressor, unpacked the new one to replace it, and discovered that it was the wrong part. It was a compressor, but the wrong revision and would not work. So he contacted his office, was told that there was another compressor in the right revision in the shop, and drove over to get it. An hour later he showed back up at our door and five minutes after that he discovered that the second compressor did not work either. It was significantly bigger than the original which meant it wouldn’t fit. Poor Ivan. He was so frustrated that I suspect if there were not actual customers involved, he might have started cussing in his thick, eastern European accent. He is only as good as the information he is given and when all the spec sheets show that a part fits when it really doesn’t, he is the one in the line of fire. He contacted the office again and they contacted the fridge manufacturer directly. The correct part was identified, and we were informed that it can be here in another 3ish days. 

What that means is that our fridge, which was not working well before but was at least keeping our food adequately cool is no longer functioning at all. It is compressor-less, unplugged, and acting like a hugely expensive stainless-steel paperweight. So once again we are pulling out the ice chests and transferring food. At least we still have the mini fridge that was lent to us to keep the dairy products cold. We are going to owe our friends a steak dinner after all this.

And poor Ivan. He was so worried about leaving us with no fridge. I hope they at least pay him well.

(Sigh)

So you know when your fridge dies and you have to buy a new one but when the new one arrives you realize you hate it because it is too small, so you buy a different one, but when that one arrives you discover within the first twenty-four hours that it is not working correctly because the fridge is not quite cool enough and the freezer is way too cold, so you call the store and they say to call the manufacturer, which you do,  and then when you have had the fridge for three days a repairman arrives on your doorstep and tells you that the compressor isn’t working right and the fan in the freezer isn’t working at all and it will be three to four business days until the parts can be here, after which they will need to schedule another appointment to come back for the repair and hope that it fixes the problem?

Yeah, that has been the past two weeks of my life. At least the cool laser thermometer the repairman had confirmed that the $6 fridge/freezer thermometers we purchased from Amazon are spot on, thereby justifying our claims that things are definitely not working right. 

Doh!

Our new fridge arrived today. It should have been a happy thing as living out of ice chests is not the most convenient thing ever, but unfortunately, when the fridge arrived it was very clearly a counter depth fridge rather than standard depth. What that means is that the capacity of the new fridge is significantly less than our old fridge. Kevin and I usually do a lot of research before making big purchases, but due to the untimely death of the old appliance, we did not have as much time to make a selection as we usually do. In our attempts to balance what we needed with what was available, we both missed the “counter depth” part of the description.

We decided to give it a couple of days to see if we could live with it, but it didn’t take either of us that long to decide that we hated it. When I put the miniscule amount of chilled food that we had in the new fridge, it got full alarmingly fast. And we didn’t have a lot on hand-a half gallon each of milk and soy milk, a carton of eggs, a tub of butter, a package of lunch meat, a few veggies. That was really it since so much of what was in the fridge when it met its demise ended up in the trash. We picked up just a few necessities from the store (We had some friends loan us a mini fridge to keep the milk and eggs in, which has been quite a blessing, but just those couple of things filled it up.) and have been living on freezer meals and sandwiches. So within just a couple of hours, Kev was on the phone trying to track down a different fridge. Luckily for us, he was able to find just one that is better suited to our needs and was in stock right now, so he dashed off to Lowes to make the purchase. He initiated the return on the counter depth fridge at the same time and arranged to have that one picked up when the second new one arrives next Tuesday. 

The upside to all this is that at least we have a working fridge for the next week while we wait for our next delivery day. It’s like a really expensive rental where we get our full deposit back in a week. The new new fridge is also significantly cheaper than the counter depth one. Another perk is that we will make sure to give the details of a big purchase a closer look if we find ourselves in a sticky situation like this again. I’m hoping not to need that particular bit of knowledge any time soon. I’m much happier when I have the luxury of time to fully weigh the pros and cons of any big-ticket items.

Ice, Ice, Maybe?

So…our fridge is dead. It passed sometime overnight. I have a sneaking suspicion that it started ailing yesterday evening, but the symptoms were not apparent enough for me to feel concerned. There was a bit more frost in the freezer than normal, but that happens when the freezer doesn’t get closed all the way and I have children, so I made sure it was well sealed and didn’t think anything else about it. But this morning when Kev told me that he thought the ice maker was dying when only water poured into his water bottle instead of ice, that slight excess of frost I had spotted in the freezer suddenly had a much more sinister cause. I popped open the freezer and sure enough, things were well on their way to liquefaction. We ended up throwing away about half of the contents of the freezer because they were completely ruined or way too old anyway. The freezer has been in need of a good clean and sort, but I’ve been putting it off for awhile now. The failure of said appliance meant the purge could not be delayed any longer. Luckily for us, we have multiple freezers in the garage so the food that was still viable was easily relocated. 

Once we got the kids off to school, Kev and I headed to Lowes to see about getting a new fridge. The past two years have held lengthy shortages of many products and extensive delays on receiving products ordered, so I was feeling some stress about being able to get a new fridge in a timely fashion. We were blessed though, to be able to find a fridge that will work in our space, is big enough to suit our needs, has all the features I like, is actually in stock, and can be delivered on Tuesday. Until then we will be living out of ice chests and will need to replace much of what is in our fridge due to the long exposure to less than safe temperatures. However, that is an inconvenience and nothing more. 

I really wish shopping day had not been yesterday as the fridge was completely full of a week’s worth of groceries, but it can all be replaced. Another con is the fact that we ended up spending far more money than I would have liked since 1) we were not planning on buying a fridge right now and 2) we had to go with what was available rather than wait for a less expensive model due to our current situation, but we have also been greatly blessed in terms of Kevin’s employment and we have the money in the bank. All things considered, this is nothing more than a speedbump in the grand scheme of things, a mightily annoying and pretty frustrating bump, but a speedbump none the less.

Now I’ve Officially Found Burpies Everywhere…

(FYI: For those not in the know, the towels I used for burp rags became Malia’s security objects of choice. She calls them burpies.)