Your refrigerating system can be very expensive to repair. However, most serious repairs, those that cost a lot of money, are the result of poor longterm maintenance. That is, if you don't do some basic maintenance, like cleaning your condenser coils and defrosting the refrigerator, your system will suffer and use more electricity. This article explains one intermediate level DIY repair that is a little more complicated than cleaning your condenser and defrosting the refrigerator. It is vital to the overall health of your system, and it is not that complicated.

Where is the Evaporator?

The evaporator coils are one of the most vital yet overlooked part of any refrigerator. This is partly due to the fact that the coils are located on the back of the refrigerator box. Often, the evaporators are located behind a protective cage on the back of the box.

However, it should be easy to find and identify. The evaporator is a system of metal coils that are wrapped back and forth. Most evaporators stick out just a couple of inches.

What to Clean

The space in between the individual coils is what you need to worry about. This area the coils will commonly get caked in dust build up. When the coils are caked in dust, they don't work as efficiently as they should. That is, the heat transfer process is slowed down, and the evaporator needs to use more electricity in order to circulate refrigerant through the coils. So, simply cleaning this dust off of your coils can actually make your in entire system more energy efficient.

How to Clean

You need to be careful because the coils can be extremely fragile. So, you want to try to avoid using any sort of scrubbing or cleaning tools. Start off by delicately vacuuming around the coils using a hose vacuum. If your hose vacuum has a brush attachment, use this to lightly brush away any of the more stubborn dirt. You also don't want to use any sort of cleaning liquids or soaps. Before you start to work on your evaporator coil, you should shut down the power to the refrigerator. Most evaporator coils are powered by the same source as the actual refrigerator. So, if you shut off the refrigerator power, your evaporator should also be safe to work on.

Keeping your refrigerators evaporator coils is very simple. You just need to remember to do it regularly.

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