How to control fridge temperature?

cashferret

It was a cheap fridge, for sure, but I don't think I've ever seen a fridge with a temperature-driven thermostat (though one of the posters on this thread has a Bosch one). It seems a pretty common arrangement. The handbook gives zero guidance, alas.

Thanks, everyone, for the useful advice - it looks as though I'll have to keep measuring the temperature with a thermometer...

EssexExile

stator wrote: »

A lot of cheap fridges don't have a proper thermostat.

If you do a weekly shop and load up the freezer, the compressor will work in over time for a while and the fridge will get too cold, because there isn't a proper thermostat in the fridge. The thermostat is in the freezer and the fridge just gets a byproduct of the 'coldness' from the freezer.
Best thing to do is to check the temperature in the fridge after you've loaded up the freezer, and leave the door open if it gets too cold.

It's usually the other way around. The freezer temperature is not critical, -18 or less, so the thermostat is in the fridge to keep it between 3 & 5. The freezer temperature is a byproduct of this. This is why you can't use a cheap fridge/freezer in an outhouse, if the temperature is about 5 it will never come on so the freezer won't freeze.
But this is all academic as the op doesn't say they have a fridge/freezer.