Fridge Freezer in rented - strong seal

Elfbert

It's simple physics. I can't believe anyone can get to the stage in their life when they can rent a property and not have noticed this pretty much always happens! Your tenant needs a quick lesson in physics.

When you open the door of the fridge the cold air 'falls' out of the bottom, as cold air is heavier than hot air. This means that room-temp air gets into the fridge.

In the winter/normal UK temps, this isn't a huge problem. The fridge will cool the 'new' air, but that air won't have been that warm to start with, so the contraction won't be that obvious, plus over time the fridge seal will leak in more air so there is no difference in pressure inside and outside the fridge.

In very hot weather, like we have right now, the fridge will cool that 'new' hot air, as it comes into contact with any part of the fridge/contents which are cool. This hot air can contract a lot, so the pressure in the fridge drops markedly and this inequality of pressure from the outside to the inside is great - only made worse by the fact most fridge doors are quite large!

Her fridge will magically start 'working' again once it cools down a bit.

If someone's just closed the door on our kitchen fridge at work you can drag it across the floor by trying to open it up the pressure difference is so great.

dodger1

The freezer part on my fridge/freezer is the same, I just leave it a few seconds and it's fine. Do not waste money on another one, the present one is fine, unless the food is defrosting of course.

G_M

kinger101 wrote: »

There isn't a fault with it. This is just a fridge behaving normally.
Tell them you're happy to call an engineer out on the basis that they'll have to pay the call out fee if (when) they find nothing wrong with it.

I agree upsetting tenants is to be avoided, so respond understandingly. At the same time reassure them this is normal, and the solution is not to re-open the door immediately after closing it.
Providing them with a cheap thermostat so they can monitor temperature is a good idea.
And then follow kinger's advice.

kinger101

Elfbert wrote: »

]I can't believe anyone can get to the stage in their life when they can rent a property and not have noticed this pretty much always happens!

Maybe next week they'll discover that the light switches off when the door is closed too.

Pixie5740

Tell your tenant to eat more spinach...it works for Popeye.

It's great you care about your tenants and want to keep them happy in order to encourage them to stay longer. Just don't cross the line of pandering to the tenants over silly things like this.

*Robin*

Can't help wondering how the tenant uses the freezer..?

My DH used to leave the freezer door open if he was, for example, getting out some ice-cream. It would stay open while he transferred a portion into a bowl, resealed the box and only when he had replaced the ice-cream in the freezer would he shut the door.*
I, on the other hand, open the door for two seconds to remove box of ice-cream, and again for two seconds to replace it.
As someone above has commented, during the summer anyone coming to the freezer just after DH, would find it trying to follow them across the kitchen when they attempted to open the door!
*Drove me mad, and undoubtedly increased our power usage! :mad:

CathA

My dad (bless him!) tried to open a new freezer door once straight after shutting it, but due to the above explanations, it wouldn't open. He thought it was faulty, moaned like mad, looked in the book of instructions in case it had been locked accidentally. My mum went out to see if she could open it after getting fed up with him moaning for ages;of course it opened straight away! She shut it, dad came out to see how it opened and of course it wouldn't open then (again as reasons above!) Mum then tried, couldn't open it, dad tried and then it worked. This went on for quite a while, with one or other opening it, shutting it and then trying to open it straight away. They'd still be there now if my brother hadn't explained why it wasn't working.

My chest freezer does it and my upright one also. Perfectly normal freezer behaviour.