Repair Or Replace? What To Do With A Decades Old Refrigerator

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Can your old refrigerator be saved?

that lets you input refrigerator type , the approximate model year, its capacity, and your own state’s electricity price per kilowatt. The calculation lets you know approximately how much you spend annually on electricity for your fridge and how much you will save in dollars and carbon pollution over five years. In my case, that was something like $881 and 2,510 pounds of carbon pollution over five years.

Another concern, other than that we were aiding and abetting global warming, was that the refrigerator is a built-in. You can’t just slide out the refrigerator, measure the hole and assume you can slip in a new fridge -- especially one that’s not a Sub-Zero. My refrigerator is only 24-inches deep; another brand would likely be too deep for the space. And that wouldn’t work in my kitchen, as the refrigerator is located at the end of a cabinet run and right on a doorway.

I asked Dave about whether, like other appliances, there was a sort of planned obsolescence for refrigerators and if people with newer fridges actually get them repaired. He says a lot of repairs can still be made on all brands of refrigerators, but it comes down to cost. “Most fridge repair costs today are between $150 and $600,” he says. “With a $600 fix on a five-year old refrigerator you’d probably buy a new one.

In 1986, my refrigerator probably cost somewhere around $3,000, a lot of money back then. To buy a similar-style Sub-Zero replacement now, I was looking at something north of $10,000. Yes, a new refrigerator would be more energy efficient and include newer and better components -- compressor, evaporator and condenser technology has come a long way -- but we weren’t ready or able to shell out that kind of money.

In the end, my Appliance Whisperer determined that he needed to clean the coils and install a new compressor, which he was somehow able to find. A few hours of labor and $900 later, my Sub-Zero was fixed. It turns out that Sub-Zero keeps parts on hand for 15 to 20 years after a product is discounted so it looks like we may have just a small window in which to fix it again if need be in the coming years. But, maybe we should stock up on parts now.

 

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