Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Murphy's Law for Freezers

When Mike defrosted the freezer last June, it immediately iced over with 1-2 inches of ice. So he defrosted it again in late July. Same story. He felt like it might have a slow freon leak--apparently a difficult problem to fix, and our freezer is at least 20 years old--we bought it used in 1990. Last weekend I told him that I would like to get a new freezer before school started, as I did not want to walk out to the garage one day and find that everything inside is defrosted and spoiled. He agreed. I found a used freezer on Craigslist, ten miles away, great price, two years old. Owner a grad student who was moving and needed to get rid of it. Mike, Andrew, and two young men who were helping Andrew with a project, drove over and bought the freezer. We put the old one on the driveway with plans to get Haven of Rest to come pick it up for their appliance fix-up program.

The next morning, Mike, who was ready for church a little ahead of the rest of us, went out and tinkered with the old freezer. He found a place he had accidently bent, or something similar, when he defrosted it the first time, in June. He moved the freezer to his shop, plugged it in, and checked it later. It runs fine. No frost buildup. Apparently the seal was slightly open from the bent place, and there is no freon leak.

Two freezers now. The original one fixed twelve hours after we bought the second one. Murphy's Law.

No comments: