While cooking last night, Jane realised that the fridge light had gone off and the fridge / freezer unit, which often clunks and shudders was as quiet as death. We had been running down our freezer stocks for a planned defrosting at the end of the week but it seemed that our hand was being forced earlier.
The first thing to check was the fuse but, unfortunately, the plug socket sits behind a cabinet; you don’t, after all, often have to turn a fridge off. We slid the fridge forward, which let us clean the accumulated debris behind it but, it transpired, didn’t give enough room to reach through to the plug. Fortunately the back of the cabinet is made of relatively thin ply-board so, guided by a rough idea of where the socket was, I was able to take out a rectangle using a stanley knife. Swapping the fuse seemed to bring it back to life but, half an hour later, it was quiet again and there was no life. Even trying another fuse didn’t bring the switch-on judder we expected (and the existing fuse tested as good) and so it seemed that the patient was dead.
Perhaps it was just being quiet though. This morning, everything still seems cold and there is some purring going on. Still no light in the fridge but bulbs don’t last forever. Of course, that now means we have to decide whether to chase down a new bulb or take this as a good moment to make the upgrade to a modern, highly efficient model which we didn’t get round to in our kitchen refurbishment last year.
At least we now have easier access to the plug for the device and, as an added bonus, will enjoy another roast beef dinner tonight because of the decision we made last night to not waste the best piece of meat we had waiting in there!