How old is your fridge?

Refrigerators usually have a short life span but there are a few things you can try to nurse it along. We'll look for some defrost timer links later; a few small things first.

There is a fan that blows air across some of the inside parts just like the fan in your computer does. This part is called the condenser coil. With an eight year old fridge there will be dust, dirt, hairs (especially if you have pets), etc that coat the coils. This is bad. Sometimes the air gets sucked in from the front of the fridge, sometimes in the back. In either case you will want to pull it away from the wall and clean both the fan and the coil. Are you able to do this? If so we can look for a good youtube video that helps.

thanks anyway

it motivated me to look for (and find) my certification card. It may come in handy if I ever need to buy refrigerant to fix my own.

go to the dollar store and buy a bunch of plastic ice trays?

Refrigerator ice makers are notoriously prone to failure, and the costs to fix/replace them are often ridiculous (if even possible) so why not go back to the primitive, but foolproof, methods of our grandmothers...

A lot...

Thanks for the idea

I understand, I do, I do...

See image posted above.

Setting it to the coldest might help.

Thank you

It helps to use a refrigerator thermometer to make sure your fridge temp doesn't increase above maximum recommended. It can have a big effect in decreasing how long foods will keep in the fridge.

A "frost free" freezer works by periodically defrosting itself once or twice a day. This prevents frost from accumulating but might be slightly melting your bag o' ice allowing the cubes to freeze together once the defrost cycle ends. Not much you can do except keep the bag o' ice in a deep freeze if you have one. Or go old school and use ice trays.

I don't really know if that will help but it's worth a shot

to keep frozen stuff cold on your way home. If the cubes from my ice cube trays start to melt before I put them, in their bin, back into the freezer, later I have to drop the bin a few inches onto the counter to break the ice-fused cubes apart. Or whack them with a heavy-handled table knife (a small mallet like a meat mallet would work).

I deserved that....