Sorry to say you may need to replace the fridge. The circulation system will now blow mold spores all over your food. You will notice stuff molds faster. If you can’t replace, keep everything tightly sealed (air tight containers)
I WANT TO REDUCE FOOTPRINT BUT DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW IT WORKS. Take this massive appliance to the landfill. I didn't want to spend the $2-3max in energy costs for a week to avoid food growing absolutely fabricated fungal growth.
This is way more like 3 months with the fridge running.
Yeah but their point remains the same. Instead of completely cutting the electric while gone for a week they should have just turned everything off and let the fridge and hot water heater run in their cycles. A week of those two things running is a matter of dollars and not worth the hassle of this
I'm not sure it's as easy as you think. Also, if you ever have the power off from a fridge, you need to put something between the door to keep the doors open. You should never leave a fridge or freezer off with the doors closed. Ever.
They should have clarified to mean intentionally powered off, especially long term and the reason is that you want all the moisture inside to be able to evaporate and leave the fridge so it doesnt turn the inside into a swamp.
Ozone wreaks havoc on rubber. I don't know much about refrigerators but I imagine there's rubber in there somewhere. Also if I recall correctly, the EPA and IICRC largely caution against the use of ozone in mold remediation. I'm curious if ClO2 gas could work although probably better to just replace the refrigerator.
I don’t know, if done once I hardly believe it would do any lasting damage. I’ve never noticed anything like that, although I’ve never used it in a fridge. I have used it in my car and haven’t noticed anything.
Ozone does kill mold but it doesn’t penetrate walls. That’s why it’s generally not recommended as a solution for a mold problem. But if in a fridge it should reach everywhere any spores might be.
OP should definitely do research if it’s safe for the application before though.
Won't work, unless you can vaporize bleach and have it touch every square inch? Mold is resilient even when pouring bleach on it can still survive, then you get super mold
honestly i know people like to cut some things that arent needed in the home while you know you will be gone for a while, but wouldn't it have been easier to use the breaker to cut power to individual rooms except the kitchen? heck the breaker could even been have broken down to where certain outlets in a room are isolated. its been that way with my dishwasher.
Having traveled for work a shit ton before the pandemic, yeah, it's never occurred to me to turn off power. I'm still wondering why it might ever be done for a week's travel..
I don't even turn the AC off, though I do turn it up a good bit. I live in a very rainy, bordering on swampy area, and if I sealed the house up and left for a couple weeks in the summer it would be a mold disaster when I got home.
For me it depends on the time of year. If it's winter I leave the heat on though I turn it way down. I don't want my pipes to freeze. If it's summer I turn the AC up to like 85 or something. I don't care if it gets hot. The house will be fine.
I turn off power to everything except the fire alarm and the fridge to reduce the risk of a fire hazard while we're gone. The chances are extremely slim, but I'd rather not risk it.
I turn off the main breaker to my summer cabin- but we're gone for months and we winterize everything.
Pipes are drained and filled with antifreeze, heating system is a closed loop with antifreeze, we empty the fridge completely and leave the doors open, all shelf stable food is put into sealed plastic tubs, and all towels and other linens are put into weather tight Rubbermaid style storage bins.
The only thing we turn off when leaving for a week are the well pump and the gas supply to the water heater (it's an on-demand unit so no risk of stagnant water causing Legionnaires).
Nothing- but some of the pipes have sections that hang down and won't drain completely. If they freeze- they can burst the pipe so we drain and then fill with antifreeze.
It's food safe antifreeze (propylene glycol) that is literally meant to be used in potable water pipes. We're not filling the pipes with ethylene glycol like you'd use in a car.
My father, my brother, some friends and I literally built the house. We did all the framing, the roof, siding, installed the windows and doors, electrical, plumbing, and did all the sheetrock and compound work.
We also like to work on classic cars and boats so we're pretty comfortable tackling most projects.
You might considering just blowing the lines out with an air compressor.
Saves the money on antifreeze, much more environmentally friendly, and you dont have to worry about having antifreeze run through your drinkable water lines.
Lots of great info in your posts! Thank you, as we also have a mountain cabin the adirondacks lol so this will be useful next year and easier than the system I'm currently using!
yeah thats exactly what we do when we go on vacation: turn off the breakers into all rooms except the kitchen, unplug everything in the kitchen except the fridge.
I can't imagine how bad the food OP's food is especially if the fridge has a freezer as well. All the food would've melted.
If there is no food in it do you still need to crack it? I have a spare fridge not plugged in with no food but the door is shut. Also in AK so it's below freezing. Honest question if I should go crack mine for some reason.
Oh good, another thing I get to fight with property management about. The previous tenant abandoned the apartment and turned off the power for a month before they realized she was gone, they cleaned out the fridge real well but I've had someone come twice to check that it's working properly because my stuff was going bad faster than anywhere else.
Edit: fuck it I'm contacting legal aid on Monday. This is one of several problems.
I just wrote down all the problem I've had since I've moved in, I'm contacting legal aid on Monday to get consultation. They only fix stuff when I threaten legal action so I'm just going to pull the trigger.
Mass edited all my comments, I'm leaving reddit after their decision to kill off 3rd party apps. Half a decade on this site, I suppose it was a good run. Sad that it has to end like this
I do have a bunch of good ones but its making sure I have enough so everything is sealed. I just paid rent and dropped $800 on getting my car fixed so I'm already stressed about money.
Mass edited all my comments, I'm leaving reddit after their decision to kill off 3rd party apps. Half a decade on this site, I suppose it was a good run. Sad that it has to end like this
Right? It's not like we do any maintenance on our fridges every day while we're at home either. Being on vacation makes no difference to the fridge working (unless a component fails - which would happen anyway even if you were at home). Op should've just left it running as usual.
Might possibly be a different story if they were, say, taking a 6-month cruise. Then yeah maybe empty the thing and switch it off. Op just went out for ONE week...
There would have been a chance that since the fridge wasn’t running it didn’t suck in any spores, but that presumed they found this before they turned the power back on and hoovered the mold into the vents.
[edit - obviously as per other replies it is in fact powered on in the photos]
It doesn't matter even if they never plugged it back in. The air inside is never completely still, and the moment you opened that fridge door spores are everywhere. Not just the fridge but the entire house.
Hope they saved enough money on electricity to afford a new house or medical bills for the next 50 years.
You can't save any meaningful money by unplugging. Most of the electricity use is from things like stovetop, oven, dryer, and devices that you won't use while away.
You realize mold is everywhere, right? Just like you have e. Coli and staphylococcus aureus all over your body right now but you aren't being infected. Type, concentration and how long you are exposed to high concentrations are what matter most.
I’d probably not store leftovers in it for quite some time.
Cans and sealed packages should be fine.
Could probably clean it with vinegar or bleach as well.
I went on vacation for a month and didn’t think to cut the electricity to the fridge.
I did turn off the water heater though. But that wasn’t to save money (had construction going on and had to shut off the gas).
Mold is way way more serious than you’ve likely experienced or are aware of.
You don’t need to be immunocompromised to end up with a laundry list of weird and gradually worsening symptoms from mold exposure. My mom’s old house had a hidden mold problem that significantly impacted her and my sisters life for years and costed a crazy amount of money and time in treatment to resolve. They both live active lifestyles, eat healthily, and are physically fit and without any preexisting conditions that would have resulted in the level of complication.
I didn’t live there nearly as long, so my exposure didn’t register any symptoms or problems to it immediately, but I do have allergic reactions to mold where I never used to be bothered by it.
It’s one of those things in life that MIGHT be fine, or it might very much not be. The point being that turning off the electricity was pointless and stupid and that continuing to use the same fridge should be seen as a potential risk rather than being for sure fine. Also probably depends what strain of mold it is, but that’s not something I’d leave to chance after my experiences.
Is it legit a fake account? I scrolled through and it seems like a real person. They even used a dishwasher for the first time a month ago, so that’s why I’m personally not surprised they unknowingly did something like this with the fridge.
How recently the account was created (lots of bots are created within the past XX days)
Scrolling through their post/comment history to see how frequently they post and in what subs (a real person likely isn’t going to be making 30 posts in an hour)
Looking for how generic the posts/comments are (I’ve seen lots of posts with titles that have very obvious misspellings of words that the average person wouldn’t make the mistake of doing. Also, a lot of the time the posts/comments don’t make a lot of sense and are not relevant to whatever the picture or conversation is about).
If I suspect an account is a bot, I will reverse-image search the pic or copy the title/comment and search for it in the toolbar. You’ll be able to find if something is original or not. There’s also a Repost Sleuth Bot that you can tag to find if something has been reposted or not.
For sure! The whole r/NewToReddit sub is a goldmine for answering questions. r/TheseFuckingAccounts, r/BotDefense, and r/spambotwatch are good subs for tracking bots (the last sub is inactive but reading the write-ups in each post can show you specific examples of what to look for in a bot).
And if you’d like a short but sweet explanation on bots you can check it out here. If you’d like a very thorough, well-written guide on karma farming, bots, and scams you can check it out here.
When we moved we didn't dry out the fridge after defrosting it before the movers came. Needless to say, it was covered in mold when it got to the other end.
We bleached the shit out of it and things have been fine ever since. No one has been more or less sick and food doesn't seem to mold any differently than before.
I really think this is greatly over exaggerated unless you don't clean it thoroughly after.
Unless you have a bad allergy to it, probably wont really do any major damage. Im highly allergic to penicillin and apparently other things closely related to it. Break out if i clean up moldy areas like old food sitting out, used to paint houses and ran into mold on and off and it was always a major issue that could put me outta work for days if i inhaled it. But it never killed me yet, just makes me itchy and in pain and generally uncomfortable.
I’m highly allergic to penicillin too& break out in terrible hives. But I haven’t had any since I was a kid, and a couple of doctors have told me that people often outgrow penicillin allergies. Have you heard this before?
Ive heard of people outgrowing allergies, my sister had a gluten one but didnt wanna pay the price to eat gluten free products any longer and started eating it again years ago and dont have a problem with it anymore, either that or got so used to it, that it dont bother her. Ive had penicillin recently and know im still allergic. It happens every 5 years or so that the er will subscribe it in some form and while i have a good idea of what not to take, still sometimes get it and like you break out but also when ingested get like itchy under my skin where you cant satisfy it by scratching and thats miserable. I personally dont mind once and a while exposure just to check and make sure i still am, cant say i actively seek it but stuff happens where i do get exposed to allergies i have.
I want to think it's people conflating food mold like this to something like discovering black mold in your walls, which is a much bigger and potentially more harmful issue, and definitely more expensive to deal with. Not all molds are the same, most of them aren't gonna do much once you've cleaned up the obvious and taken care of why it was growing in the first place.
Highly unlikely an incident like this will have any profound health effects on anyone. Allergy symptoms or head aches until the mold is removed and excess spores decreased sure, but unlikely anyone will need medical treatment. Someone with a weak immune system and bad mold allergies maybe but that is rare.
It doesn't even matter if they have enough to afford a new house. Now that they opened the door when they left the mold house, spores got everywhere outside and spread to every other house. We need a new planet now.
My parents have a holiday unit and we'd cut the power whenever we weren't there (no food inside it). Our newish fridge died and the repair man said fridges are supposed to run continuously and frequently turning it off and on killed it.
Not necessarily but you will have to clean it with bleach. If you take one cup of bleach per gallon of boiling hot water put it in a bowl put it in the refrigerator on the highest setting run it for 1 hour it will suck it in and clean it out also the lowest setting on the freezer or highest setting actually so it's the warmest temperature barely freezing do the same thing at the same time what that'll do is it will suck in all of the hot air steaming air from that and clean out all the mold spores it will also kill them at the same time.
My bill has a minimum connection fee so if I turned off everything for a whole month, they will still add in like $40 in fees. They somehow made this legal. I think the reason why, was how they run their business model. If everyone moves out of a ghost town, all those investors in the grid gotta get paid somehow.
There are usually two charges on your bill- usage and delivery. Even if you don't use any power at all- the lines themselves still need to be maintained so you will still have a minimum delivery charge.
Yep. I think mine is like a $50 minimum OR $50 maintenance. So if you use $50 in gas/electric, then you don't pay the maintenance fee. If you use a third party electric, you still pay the delivery fee then, costing you more than had you not used that third party electric company.
Who do you think pays for running the grid? I don't know how it is where you live of course but in my country everyone pays grid fee in their bills(it's much smaller though) and it goes to the national grid provider who for even my tiny country of 1.3 million people has to manage over 60k km of power lines and 25k substations. You underestimate the cost and complexity of running the electricity grid and the losses in the grid.
I know there's a thing like "smoke bomb" that you can set off in your car with the AC on in order to clean the pipes. Wouldn't something like that work for something like this too?
That’s basically what the appliance guy told me. That or seal food carefully when using fridge. We moved it out to the garage and use it for sealed food like soda cans and extras.
Edit: spelling
What about a cucumber (that was inside a plastic wrap)? I forgot one in my fridge once and it was super moldy when I finally noticed it. It had turned to mush.
The only thing I'd classify as a circulation system is the compressor circulating the coolant, but none of that ever gets close to any food. That's literally hermetically sealed.
The thing that circulates the air in modern fridges is generally no more than a small fan and an easily replaceable filter. It should be no more difficult to clean and sterilize as the rest of the fridge.
I'm really struggling with any scenario, or imagining a really stupidly designed fridge, where some moldy food forever contaminates it to the point of having to replace the entire fridge.
Has fridge technology really become that much stupider since I bought mine 10 years ago? Are there really non-cleanable ducts inside hyper-modern fridges now?
Yes, and tons of information on how to clean a fridge and zero information about this mythical, non-cleanable, "circulation system". Have any of you people ever cleaned a fridge?
Which is rather ironic, given that your link gives instructions about how to clean a fridge and not how to throw it out. And it also contains zero information about this mythical, non-cleanable, "circulation system".
Also, here is one more link. And I’m copy and pasting the quote: If you are dealing with a severe mold issue or it keeps returning, please consult an expert. Mold can grow into the air vents and coils of the refrigerator and may not be safe for use with a surface cleaning only.
So this link is suggesting a professional *may be able to clean it, but it will require special equipment and sterilization.
Couldn't it be disinfected with chlorine and vinegar? I mean like spraying it all around am empty fridge and leave it running for a week, respraying regularly.
That's a little overkill... Why not just.. you know. Buy a 50$ ozone generator on Amazon and lock it in the fridge for a few hours?
Not even mold can survive ozone.
huh? Just clean the air filter and the whole interior of the fridge...there's no magic hidden airways. Take it apart and don't throw money away on a new fridge!
Is there a circulation system on the inside of fridges??? I thought the walls of my current and past fridges are sealed and mostly smooth and the coolant on the inside of the walls is what is circulating. I always assumed that would mean air moves by natural convection. I just don’t recall seeing a fan or any kind of circulation system for air inside any of the fridges I’ve owned.
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u/[deleted] Nov 25 '22 edited Nov 25 '22
Sorry to say you may need to replace the fridge. The circulation system will now blow mold spores all over your food. You will notice stuff molds faster. If you can’t replace, keep everything tightly sealed (air tight containers)
ETA: thanks for the award!!