Does Your Fridge Door Keep Popping Open When Nobody's Around? Ghostly Presence Or DIY Fix?
If you've found yourself blaming your kids (or spouse) for regularly leaving the fridge door open, only to witness the door popping open on its own with no one else in the room, you may be wondering what to do (after issuing a rueful apology to those who were falsely accused). Tracking down the issue that causes a fridge door to malfunction is usually a fairly simple process, but even in more complicated cases, you may be reluctant to enlist a repairperson to solve what should be a minor issue. Read on to learn more about troubleshooting the causes of a randomly opening refrigerator door, as well as a few potential fixes that may require a professional's help.
Where should you begin when trying to diagnose your fridge door problem?
Because there are several issues that can cause this problem, beginning with the easiest-to-solve one usually makes the most sense. If you have shelves or racks on your fridge door, remove all items from these racks and then test the opening and closing of the door. If the door seems to shut easily and isn't popping open, you may simply want to relocate the majority of the door-kept items to elsewhere in the fridge to prevent the problem from recurring.
Keeping heavy items on this door rack can put strain on the door's hinges, sometimes bending them just enough so that the door no longer seals shut. If you've removed these items and the door now seems to hang slightly askew, you may try just pushing up on the door while it's open to bend the hinges back to their normal position.
Another potential culprit behind your perpetually open fridge door is the rubbery seal itself. If this rubber lining becomes cracked or the adhesive holding it to the edge of the door begins to give way, it will no longer force the door to seal shut, allowing it to fall open in the absence of a latch or any other mechanism to keep it closed. Removing and replacing this seal is a fairly quick process that can be performed by a homeowner with just a few simple tools and an hour or so of free weekend time.
When may you need to contact an appliance repair company?
If you've run through each of these steps and still haven't solved your problem, there may be hidden issues causing the door to not seal properly. Contacting an appliance repair company and having a technician come to perform an in-person diagnosis may be your quickest route to a perfectly-functioning fridge. Since a door that pops open over and over can not only raise your energy bill, but cause expensive food to spoil, repairing this problem as soon as you can is key to saving money in the long run.
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