Telly
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2003
- Messages
- 2,395
snip...... I did another extra thorough cleaning using a strong bleach solution and it looks great, but does not smell so good and I am afraid I will still need to get rid of it due to the odor. I have left the beast turned off with the doors open for a week now.
What can I do to get rid of the odor which seems to have been absorbed by the plastic interior panels, or is it hopeless? I am thinking of another cleaning with baking soda.
I'll postulate that you will need to clean the evaporator and air path. Depending how handy you are, you could remove the panel (where depends on the refridge) that covers the evaporator coil, heater assembly etc. and spray it down with a bleach/water solution. Then let it sit a few minutes, then rinse off all of the bleach, as the chlorine in bleach is corrosive to most metals and you don't want to leave it on there.
The back of the panel you remove should also be cleaned.
Anything you spray onto or pour into the evaporator will work it's way by gravity into the evaporator's drip tray, then run down a plastic tube and dump out into the condensate pan under the refridge. Usually, the condensor fan blowing across this condensate pan when the unit is running will evaporate the liquid into the room air to get rid of it. But in this case, you would want to attach a hose or something to the tube and divert the cleaning solution and rinse water into a bucket to dispose of.
On most refridgerators, you can see the condensate pan if you look into the rear near the bottom, where there are air slots punched in the (usually) fiber panel that covers that area. The fiber panel comes out with a few screws. All safety cautions apply, of course.