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Refrigerator Tips and Tricks Every Homeowner Should Know

As a homeowner, you want your refrigerator to function as efficiently as possible. The good news is that you can keep your fridge in optimal working condition by doing the right things. Which are these things that you should do? Here they are as given by appliance repair professionals:

Keep the right food in the fridge

Not every food belongs in the fridge, and putting the wrong food there always leads to problems. To help you out, here are some of the foods that shouldn’t see the door of your refrigerator:

Potatoes: The only reason you should refrigerate your potatoes is if you want them mealy sweet. If this isn’t the case, store them in a cool, dark place like the cellar.

Tomatoes: Contrary to popular belief, you shouldn’t store your tomatoes in the fridge as they will lose their flavor when cooled.

Bread: Bread tends to dry out in the fridge, so you shouldn’t store it there. Instead, store it in a bread box.

Bananas: Bananas don’t like the cold. In fact, they develop brown spots when you store them in the fridge.

Garlic and onions: These tend to go moldy faster when you store them in the fridge than when they are at room temperature.

Honey: Honey crystallizes in the fridge

Lemons: They belong in the fruit bowl at room temperature

Coffee: You shouldn’t keep coffee in the fridge as it quickly absorbs odors and loses its taste

Oils: Oils often become rancid, so you shouldn’t store them in the refrigerator. Instead, store them in the cupboard.

Try to save as much electricity as possible.

As much as you want fresh food, it doesn’t mean you are ready to spend an arm and a leg on electricity, does it? Thankfully, there are plenty of ways you can save on electricity with your refrigerator. Which are these ways? Here they are:

Be strategic in how you place the fridge: When installing your fridge, don’t place it next to heat sources such as dishwashers, washing machines, radiators, or stoves. Also, don’t place it in an area that receives maximum sunshine. Always remember that the warmer the environment you place the fridge, the more electricity it consumes to cool the food inside.

Clean your fridge regularly: A dirty fridge is unsightly and consumes plenty of electricity. To reduce the amount of energy that your refrigerator consumes, clean your unit regularly. One of the things you should do is to dust the cooling bar and ventilation grille. Also, defrost the unit, regularly inspect the door seals, and ensure they are clean and not worn out.

Finally, inspect the unit and confirm that the temperature isn’t set too cold. Remember that a temperature of 7 degrees is enough to keep the food cool.

Fill the fridge just right.

Some homeowners have the impression that an empty fridge functions better than a full one, but this isn’t the case—a full one functions more efficiently. While keeping your unit full is good, don’t overfill it, as you will block the air vents, preventing the air from circulating correctly.

A fridge with blocked air vents functions harder than it should, leading to burnout.

To ensure that you don’t stock your appliance more than it should, don’t store anything that doesn’t belong there. At least once a week, remove all the food items and clean the unit.

For you to leave enough space for air to circulate, discard any expired food items.

As you restock your appliance, be strategic about how you go about it. For example, put any new items behind the older ones. This prevents you from forgetting the items with a closer expiration date at the back corner of the fridge.

Refrigerator repair Northern VA professionals recommend that you pay close attention to the coolest zones of the appliance and sort your food accordingly. Of course, store the food that needs lower temperatures in the areas with low temperatures and vice versa.

If it’s long since you have gone to the grocery store, don’t leave the fridge empty—place milk, water, and other items there to maintain the right temperature.

What Should You Never Put In The Refrigerator?

If you visit many homes, you will find their refrigerators filled with all sorts of foods. While there is nothing wrong with preserving as much food as possible, did you know there are some food items that should never see the insides of a fridge?

Here are some of these items as given by appliance repair professionals

Uncut melons

Putting a whole watermelon in your fridge, whether a honeydew or cantaloupe, is unwise. Besides the melon taking up too much fridge space, it keeps it from ripening, which means it doesn’t get as tasty as when you would have left it at room temperature.

The low fridge temperatures also reduce the healthy antioxidants in the fruit, which means that it doesn’t become as healthy as you would want it.

The right thing to do is leave the watermelon on the countertop until it’s ripe enough to eat. If you eat it and there are some leftovers, store them in an airtight container in the fridge for a maximum of three days.

Honey

At first look, honey looks like an excellent candidate for the refrigerator, but it isn’t. Due to its high sugar content, honey is a natural preservative—it doesn’t need any refrigeration. In fact, putting it in the fridge increases the chances of damaging it.

When you refrigerate honey, it hardens and sometimes crystallizes, losing its original state.

The best way to treat honey is to leave it on the shelf in your pantry. If you have already made the mistake of refrigerating it, don’t be quick to toss it out. Instead, place the bottle in a hot (not boiling) water pan until it returns to its liquid state.

Raw potatoes

You shouldn’t put your raw potatoes in the fridge as the low temperatures will alter the starchy complex carbohydrates in the potatoes, and you end up with extremely sweet and gritty potatoes.

For the best flavor and texture, store your potatoes in a well-ventilated basket or drawer, away from direct sunlight.

Tomatoes

Like honey, tomatoes look like they belong in the fridge, but they don’t. This is because when you refrigerate them, they often end up having an awful taste.

Even after harvesting, tomatoes continue ripening and developing flavor.

The big chill stops the ripening process and dulls the flavor when you place them in the fridge.

Snip off just a bit of the vine when harvesting if you grow your tomatoes. The attached vine has been shown to help keep the tomatoes fresh longer and give them a better flavor.

Onions

The fridge’s low temperatures and high humidity often damage the onions, breaking down their fibrous structure, leaving them mushy and prone to mold growth.

Store your onions in well-ventilated, dark, and cool (not cold) areas for the best flavor and texture. One of the best places to store the onions is in an open weave basket in the pantry.

Green avocados

Green avocados are often unripe, and for them to fully ripen, they need to be at room temperature. The only time to keep your avocados in the fridge is if they are fully ripe but you aren’t ready to eat them.

You should note that even when you put the avocados in the fridge, you shouldn’t leave them there for more than two days as they will go bad.

Bread

You should never put bread in the fridge. While refrigeration slows down mold growth, it makes the bread tough, chewy, and stale tasting.

The best way to go about it is to store the bread in a breadbox or a cabinet shelf.

If you won’t eat the entire bread, wrap the excess in freezer paper and store it in the freezer. Here the bread can stay for up to a month.

Chocolate

Most people eat their chocolates in one sitting, and for those unable to eat all of it in one go, the last thing they want is to let it go to waste. Unfortunately, keeping the chocolate in the fridge isn’t the right thing to do.

While keeping the chocolate in the fridge won’t make the chocolate inedible, it absorbs odors and changes its consistency.

Refrigerator repair Alexandria recommend you leave the chocolate on the counter or in the pantry to maintain maximum deliciousness.

Proper Use of Refrigerator Tips

Virginia Refrigerators Repair

You need to use your refrigerator properly for it to function optimally and keep off a refrigerator repair professional. How do you do it? Here are tips on the proper use of a fridge:

Keep the used foods at the front

It’s common to open some foods then, after partially using them, return them to the fridge.

Many homeowners aren’t conscious of where they put the opened foods, which is wrong.

The right way to do it is to place the opened foods at the front of the fridge shelves, in front of the newer items. This way you are sure that you use the opened items before you move to the sealed ones.

Some homeowners will say they can remember the bottle they have opened, but this isn’t the case. Even if you place a label on the foods, don’t mix them with the unopened ones.

When storing the leftovers, move with haste and keep them before they enter the danger zone. If storing large amounts of the leftovers, store them in several small, shallow containers that will cool faster.

Remember to date them and keep them as fresh as possible by removing as much air from them as possible.

Put the non-perishables on the fridge doors.

The less perishable foods such as juices, fruits, and others respond better to temperature fluctuations, so you should put them on the fridge doors.

Remember that you will open and close the fridge door, so ensure that the foods you place here can withstand the temperature changes without changing their taste or texture.

Keep the raw foods at the bottom.

Raw meat and fish belong at the bottom of the fridge where the temperatures are lowest. These areas also don’t experience a lot of temperature fluctuations when you open and close the refrigerator.

Since the raw foods tend to be highly perishable, placing them at the bottom means that you put them away from the other foods, hence you don’t worry about them contaminating the rest of your foods.

As you put the raw foods at the bottom of the fridge, remember to keep them sealed and free of leaks.

Keep the refrigerator below 5 degrees centigrade.

You should keep your fridge below 5 degrees centigrade so that you can keep all of the food cool, fresh, and full of flavor. You are sure that even the highly sensitive milk won’t get spoilt at this temperature.

Don’t overstock the fridge.

It’s easy to be carried away and stock more than your fridge can carry, when you don’t want to make another trip to the grocery store.

As much as you will save a trip to the grocery store, overloading your refrigerator is not a wise thing to do as it prevents the air from circulating as well as it should, which, as you can guess, means that your foods don’t remain as cool as well as they should.

There is also the risk of the fridge overworking when you overload it, which drives it to an early grave.

What is the best thing to do instead?

The right thing to do is stock just the right amount of food in your fridge.

You are better off making another trip to the grocery store within the month than overloading your fridge and damaging it.

Clean the fridge once a week

At least once a week, remove all the foods in the fridge and clean them. Before returning any of the foods, find out their expiry date and discard them if necessary. You should also discard any food you aren’t sure whether should be in the fridge.

Parting shot

These are some wise fridge tips to keep your refrigerator in top working shape.

Don’t wait for your fridge to break down if you can afford it. Hire an experienced appliance repair Alexandria professional at least once a year to go over your unit and fix any issues your appliance might be having.

This way you prevent larger problems from resulting down the line, that might be too expensive to fix.

The professionals will also help you know expert tips to keep your appliance in top shape.

5 Rules for a Perfect Fridge

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Would you love to keep your fridge in perfect working order and keep off refrigerator repair professionals? You should keep these fridge rules into consideration:

Keep the fridge at the right temperature

Setting the fridge at the optimal temperature not only keeps your food fresh, but also prevents it from overworking. The ideal fridge temperature is between 1c and 4C as you have to keep the food at 5C or lower. If you recently visited the grocery store, so the fridge is full, keep the temperature settings a little lower to save energy.

If it’s empty or cold, keep the temperature a little high.

Besides doing this, make it a habit to defrost your appliance when the ice is more than 5mm thick or prevent the air from circulating as effectively as it should.

Keep the fridge clean.

It goes without saying that you have to keep the fridge in top shape to keep it clean. As a rule of thumb, clear any spillages as soon as they happen. You should also wipe down the handles daily and clean the door outside at least once a week.

Regularly inspect the shelves and containers for lackluster or out-of-date food items and remove them.

At least once every three months, empty the refrigerator and draw out all the removable parts (drawers, shelves, and racks), then wash them with hot water and washing liquid.

Never use bleach or any non-food-safe chemical cleaners.

If the fridge is too dirty or you have gone for a long time without cleaning it, you need to deep clean it. To do this, use a toothbrush and thick paste of bicarb mixed with water and get rid of any stains.

You should then unplug the unit and clean it by hovering underneath and behind it. You should also remove any vented covers and reach the dust-coated fans and coils.

Store the right things in the fridge

What you store in your refrigerator goes a long way towards maintaining sanity in your appliance. Don’t store opened tin cans in the appliance as once you open them to the air, the tin from the can can transfer more quickly to the can’s contents.

Only place cans that come with resealable lids in the fridge, and always decant leftovers.

You also shouldn’t refrigerate hot food as they cause contamination and mess up the fridge temperature, causing it to overwork.

If you want to store your food in the fridge, wait for it to cool completely.

Some of the items in the fridge include: milk, yogurt, all berries, citrus, fish, and any opened products that specify refrigeration once opened.

Eggs require consistent temperatures so if you bought them refrigerated, keep them that way.

You also should keep large tubs of nut butters that you don’t need immediately and open pickles and jams.

Place the items on the right shelves.

Placing the right items in the refrigerator isn’t enough—you need to put them on the right shelves.

Top shelf: This shelf belongs to the items that don’t need cooking. These include: dips, sliced meats, deli dishes, leftovers, tortilla wraps, etc. This shelf is also perfect for any unfinished tin cans.

Middle shelf: The best items to store here are dairy and eggs. Don’t store the items on the door racks or egg holders to avoid damaging your door.

Bottom shelf: You place meat and fish here

Vegetable drawers: These are designed for fruits, vegetables, herbs, and leaves. Lettuce and other greens belong here.

Store all soft, fresh herbs (except for basil) here.

Door racks: Door racks are for juices, condiments, spreads, and other items with long shelf lives.

Undertake regular inspections

After buying, most homeowners don’t inspect their appliances, which is wrong. To ensure that your unit is in top working condition, make it a habit to inspect it at least once a year. Go around the unit and find any issue it might be having.

You can inspect yourself or hire an appliance repair Springfield professional to help you out. When hiring the repair expert, ensure they are experienced and know what they are doing.

Refrigerator Repair: Refrigerator Preventative Maintenance Checklist To Keep Your Fridge In Top Shape

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To avoid hiring refrigerator repair technicians to repair your appliance frequently, you need to be cautious of the sanity of your appliance. To have an easy time, have a refrigerator preventative maintenance checklist with you.

The list protects your appliance from sudden breakdowns and ensures that your appliance lasts for a long time. Some of the things you should do to maintain the sanity of your appliance include:

Keep the appliance leveled

If the fridge or freezer isn’t level, the doors don’t seal correctly, and in no time they warp out of place. To prevent this from happening, place a carpenter’s level on top of the unit. If it’s not level, adjust the feet using a hand wrench.

Defrost the unit

Many modern appliances have a self-defrosting mechanism that prevents ice from building up in the unit. If you have an old unit, it might be lacking this mechanism, so you have to defrost the appliance manually.

If the ice is over ½ inch, remove it. Start with turning off the appliance and let it defrost naturally. To speed up the process, turn on a fan facing the affected area. Avoid using sharp objects to remove the built-up ice as you can damage the appliance.

Change the water filter

If the refrigerator has an icemaker, it most likely has a water filter that you should replace. For best results, replace the filter every 6 months, or however often the manufacturer recommends. The purpose of doing this is to ensure that the ice made by the appliance is clean. Cleaning the filters also ensures that the appliance is functioning efficiently all the time.

Clean the appliance regularly

If you have a busy kitchen, the chances are that you don’t have enough time to properly get rid of food and beverage spills when they happen. When you go for a long time without properly cleaning the refrigerator, gunk is bound to develop.

To avoid this, make it a habit to clean the refrigerator surfaces at the end of every working day. When drips and splatters happen, clean them on time. When doing it, avoid using a ball of steel wool or other abrasives and chemicals such as bleach that can damage the finish of the appliance.

Remember, the longer you let a spill settle, the harder it will be to clean it without using a harmful cleaning agent. In addition to the uncleaned spills causing unpleasant odors, they significantly affect the quality of the refrigerator. Mold also tends to grow on the fridge jeopardizing the safety of the food.

Regularly inspect the seals and fix the leaks

When the seals or gaskets on the fridge doors are loose or ripped, air will escape. This results in the refrigerator working too hard; hence you have a high energy bill at the end of the month.

You can easily fix minor gasket leaks by yourself using silicone caulk. While you are at it, ensure that the refrigerator door hinges and latches are tightly secured.

Check the interior lights

Lights generate heat. In a properly functioning refrigerator, the lights should go off when you close the refrigerator door. Due to age and improper maintenance, the refrigerator lights might not be going off when you close the door. As a result, the lights heat the interior of the fridge, making the refrigerator work harder than it should.

To stop this, take the time to scrutinize the interior lights. If they don’t go off when you close the door, find out the reason and fix it.

Clean the condenser coils

The condenser coils allow the fridge or freezer to control its temperature, so you must keep them clean to ensure that the appliance is running efficiently and doesn’t overheat. When you go for a long time without cleaning the coils, dust, hair, and other grime build up on the coils.

To keep your appliance functioning efficiently, clean the coils regularly with a vacuum cleaner. For ideal results, do the cleaning at least once every three months. You can do the cleaning by yourself by following the owner’s manual or hire an appliance repair Alexandria professional to help you out.

When hiring a contractor, ensure the contractor is experienced enough. They also should be certified to work in your area.

Refrigerator Repair: How To Store Different Foods In The Refrigerator

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According to refrigerator repair professionals, one of the prime reasons why the fridge keeps on developing issues is due to improper placement of the food.

Do you want your refrigerator to last for a long time and give you a great service? You need to know how to properly place your food. Here are expert ways on how to go about it:

Meat fish and poultry

Plenty of issues have come up as a result of storing these materials in the refrigerator. Place the meat products in sealable containers. You can also place a plate underneath them to prevent the juices from escaping.

The bottom of the refrigerator is the coolest and darkest part of the fridge. This makes it the ideal place to place the foods. You should note that raw meat doesn’t last for a long time.

If you aren’t going to cook the meat in the next few days, place it in freezer bags with as little air as possible.

Fruits and vegetables

Many fridges come with a fruit and vegetables compartment. You can mix vegetables and fruits together, but since they give off different gases, it’s wise that you store them in different compartments.

For example, you should store carrots in the same area and spinach in the other area. Avoid washing the vegetables before storing them as it has been shown to lead to an early death.

When using bags, place paper towels around the vegetables to capture the moisture. If you don’t use a bag, lay down a few paper towels in the drawer to ensure that they stay fresh and moisture free.

Not all fruits and vegetables are ideal to be stored in the refrigerator. There are some that go bad fast. They include: tomatoes, bananas, onions, squash, and potatoes.

Instead of storing bananas in the fridge, hang them in a discreet place. When storing them, avoid breaking the stem when pulling them off.

When it comes to onions, squash, and potatoes, store them in a cool, dark place such as a cupboard.

Dairy

The key to keeping dairy products in top shape is to keep them in their original wrappings. This calls for you to keep cheese, milk, and other dairy products tightly sealed in the refrigerator.

When you remove something from the packaging, don’t return it. Use a plastic wrap or an airtight container to seal the food again.

When buying milk, buy it in glass bottles as bacteria tends to form at the sprout of the cardboard box.

When it comes to hard cheese, store it in the original store packaging until you use it.

After removing it from the wrapping, store it in wax paper, foil, or loose plastic. Avoid wrapping the cheese too tightly as it needs room to breathe properly.

Bread, butter, and pasta

You should refrigerate fresh pasta. If you have dried pasta, place it in an airtight container in the pantry.

You shouldn’t refrigerate bread, but the cold environment has been shown to be highly effective at preventing the bread from developing mold.

You don’t have to leave blocks of butter and margarine in the fridge. Sometimes it’s good to leave it on a tray with a cover. While this is the case, you should note that butter tends to separate when you don’t refrigerate it properly enough.

When storing butter in the fridge, you can go ahead and store it on one of the outside shelves of the fridge to maintain flavor and taste.

Wine and beer

It’s okay to store beer in the refrigerator when you are looking to keep it cool. When it comes to the wines, store then at temperatures above 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Vodka and spirits consist of up to 40% alcohol and you can go ahead and store them in the freezer.

You don’t have to keep Irish cream and drinks such as Kahlua in the fridge. According to appliance repair Springfield professionals, alcohol aids in preserving the milk and cream.

Since the drink is served cold, you can go ahead and store it in the refrigerator on the side shelf.

Refrigerator Repair: Tips On How To Keep Your Fridge In Tip-Top Shape

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According to refrigerator repair professionals, how you use the fridge has a great impact on how it works and how long it lasts. For it to give you a long service for a long time you need to take good care of it. To help you out, here are tips on how to take good care of your unit:

Clean the refrigerator regularly

This is a no-brainer. For you to keep your unit in tip-top shape you need to clean it regularly. Just like your air conditioner or heating system, when you don’t clean the fridge as regularly as you should, you make the unit work harder than it should. The unit also tends to keep on failing every now and then.

For ideal results, you should ensure that you clean the refrigerator at least once a month. At the end of the month, remove everything in it and give it a thorough cleaning. Do you use the fridge actively? Consider giving it a thorough cleaning at least once a week.

Keep it full all the time

Many people have the belief that if they want their refrigerators to save energy they should minimize the food that they keep in it. There is nothing that is further from the truth than this. You should note that the fuller the fridge is, the better it works.

When the food is in close proximity, the fridge has an easy time keeping it cool as the cold can easily spread between the different food pieces. This means that by keeping the fridge full, you make it easy for it to keep the food cool.

When there are many empty spaces in the fridge, the refrigerator compressor tends to work harder to cool the empty spots thus increasing the amount of energy that the unit uses hence the high monthly energy bill.

While you should keep the refrigerator full, you should avoid overstocking it. This is because you tend to end up destroying it. Just keep only what the fridge can take.

Make use of baskets

If you visit most refrigerators, you will find them in disarray. This not only gives your fridge an ugly look, it also reduces the amount of food that you can store in it. For you to keep the unit organized you should make use of baskets.

Buy a few small baskets that you use to sort the different products on the shelves and indoors. According to refrigerator experts, the baskets not only keep the fridge organized, they also act as a protective layer where they capture the spills and any food mess that is there.

Due to this, you have an easy time cleaning the refrigerator. When you are looking to clean the unit, you only need to remove the basket and clean it.

Use the right temperature all the time

For you to keep the food in the fridge fresh, you need to use the right temperature all the time. You should note when you set your unit at high temperatures thus keep it warm, the food tends to rot. On the other hand, when you keep the temperature too low, you end up damaging the food.

The best temperature to set your fridge is 37 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. For optimal freezing, set the freezer at 5 degrees Fahrenheit. This way you are sure that the food won’t get spoilt. This temperature has also been shown to ensure that the food tastes good, the electricity bill remains low, and the fridge isn’t overburdened.

Undertake regular inspections

You need to regularly inspect the unit for any issues it might be having. During the inspection, give attention to the condenser coils that are responsible for the proper cooling of the insides of the fridge.

Are the coils coated with dust or grime? Check them out. You should note that if they are dirty, they won’t work as well as they are supposed to unless you clean them. In some cases, you might find them damaged. In such a scenario, hire an appliance repair Springfield professional to help you with the inspection and fixing of the parts.

When buying new coils, buy high-quality ones that will last for a long time.