Refrigerator Repair DIY

I've mentioned before and shown in previous posts that I have a husband who can fix just about anything.  Sometimes I take this for granted, but it occurred to me yesterday as he was replacing our refrigerator door gasket, that there might be people out there who are paying big bucks for repairmen or just buying a new refrigerator or freezer when the door seal breaks just because they don't know how easy it is to replace it themselves.  I know that it never has entered my mind before recently that this was even possible.

We have a Kenmore refrigerator and freezer placed side-by-side in our kitchen; bought when we remodeled our kitchen back in 2008.  They still work well, look good and serve their purposes.

But, a few months ago, we noticed that the freezer was running all the time and condensation was dripping from it.  Tom had a look at it and determined that the door gasket was torn, causing it to not seal properly.  He searched on-line and found that he could buy a gasket for our model and he ordered it.   A few weeks later, he determined that the refrigerator seal was starting to fail, so he went ahead and ordered a gasket for that one, too.  We just got around to replacing it yesterday.

It came with instructions on how to install it.  Just one little page about half the size of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.  I know the print is too tiny to read on here, but this is just to show how simple the instructions are.  I didn't think to take pictures until we were almost done, so I can't show a step by step process.

To do the freezer was a little more complicated because we had to plan ahead to empty the contents of the door into coolers, then put plastic wrap over the freezer opening since we were going to have the freezer door open for an extended period of time.  But, for the refrigerator, we didn't need those things.  It takes less than a half an hour to do this, so it won't hurt the contents to be sitting on the counter for a while.  Although, if you keep milk or something like that in your door, you might want to put it in a cooler because after the new seal is installed, you can't open the door for an hour.

Anyway, the first thing to do is to remove the old seal.  If you lift up the edge of the seal, you can see a row of screws that goes all the way around.  Loosen those slightly, just enough so that you can gently pull the old seal off.  If you're having to tug real hard, then your screws aren't loose enough, although, you don't want the screws falling out.

Here's ours after being removed.

After that, you just put the new one in it's place.  The frame around the refrigerator door has a little groove that the lip of the gasket fits into.  Start at the top and fit that little lip into the groove all around the door.  It takes a little finessing and fiddling around, but once you get the hang of it, it goes pretty quick.

After the seal is in place, go back and tighten all the screws.  It really is that simple.  

It's so nice to have a new, clean gasket.  It makes the whole appliance look new again, which may inspire you to clean and organize your whole refrigerator.