These 6 Common Kitchen Habits Are Shortening Your Fridge's Lifespan

A fridge should last 10 to 15 years but the ways most of us pack it, clean it and open the door could be cutting that short.

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Your fridge is the one appliance in your home that never gets a day off. It hums along 24 hours a day, holds your groceries at a safe temperature and just sits in the kitchen, which is probably why most of us never think about it until the milk goes warm.

But the small things you do every day, from how you pack your refrigerator to where you put your leftovers, can have a real effect on the appliance’s longevity.

According to Ian Palmer-Smith, an appliance repair expert at Domestic & General, the average refrigerator should last about 10 to 15 years, but that number can drop to “eight or nine years if you don’t follow best practices”.

The good news is that almost all of those best practices are simple, and several of the worst habits that negatively impact fridges are easy to break.

We asked three repairmen about the mistakes they most often see when it comes to fridge upkeep and what to do instead.

Mistake #1: Not cleaning the condenser coil

The repairmen agreed on one thing: the part of your fridge most likely to fail is the one you’ve probably never looked at.

“The biggest driver of fridge breakdowns is the condenser coil, where the gas gets condensed and forms refrigerant,” Palmer-Spring explained. It’s a metal grid that, depending on the model, sits at the back of the unit, underneath it or, on some high-end refrigerators, up top. Because it’s tucked out of sight, it collects dust, grease and pet hair, and that buildup keeps it from doing its job.

“That stops the coil from dissipating heat, so the motor ends up overheating,” Palmer-Spring said. “The inside of the fridge might not feel hot, but the motor is overheating.”

Tony Andrade, service manager at Abt Electronics, described the same chain reaction: a dirty condenser “makes the compressor work harder and can cause it to overheat. Once it reaches a........

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