Loudtwitter summary: Fridge edition
Apr. 30th, 2010 06:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
multipurposegoddessWhat was happening with me yesterday? Oh, right:
Okay, I'm just gonna turn this into a regular journal entry, maybe with those tweets inserted if I remember they are there when I get to that part, because there is a lot of narrative to get through. Exposition. Whatever.
When we bought this house, it came with a fridge Which was nice, because while I understand many people in California have to buy fridges while they are renting, I never have, so I was fairly pleased that I still didn't have to. We went on using the free one, even though it's shelving and door arrangements were unwieldy and inconvenient, and it only had one crisper drawer that only sort of fit into its space. But free!
And then it started collecting water. Pools of water on the floor of the refrigerated compartment all the time. At first I thought it was spillage so I'd just clean it up, but more would appear. And things on the tops shelf would freeze. So I got a fridge/freezer thermometer and started adjusting the controls, trying to maintain a stable temperature. Giving each adjustment 24 hours to stabilize makes that a sloooooow process.
I've gotten hooked on Trader Joe's soy ice cream sandwiches, they are delicious and I always want to have them available in my freezer. Now, the way I learned to tell if a freezer was at the "right" temperature, was by ice cream consistency - if the ice cream is soupy, freezer should be colder; too hard to scoop, warm it up a bit. So every time the ice cream sandwiches were not quite the right firmness, which was every time I had one, I'd tweak the freezer settings appropriately.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, the ice cream sandwiches were perfect and I rejoiced that I finally had the freezer right and decided not to mess with the fridge settings anymore because the two seemed to be interconnected somehow - like bra band and cup sizes, changing one probably necessitates a change in the other.
And then a week or so later, my ice cream sandwiches were way too soft.
And, of course, the fridge had recently filled with water from the last time I had wet-vacced it out.
So DH and I pulled out the fridge to see if we could see anything in the back that might help - if the water line was hooked up in some bizarre fashion, for example, or if coils obviously needed cleaning or something. Well, we came to no real conclusions about the fridge (except that the water line was NOT hooked up at all (which was kind of a relief) but seeing behind a fridge that had never been pulled out and cleaned behind (never by us, and judging by the accumulation possibly never by the previous owners, either) was too much for DH and he had to go lie down. Seriously.
So we decided to buy a new fridge.
We did no research - we were going to Lowes to get a small patio table I'd found online anyway, so we just hit the refrigerator section while we were there. The saleslady was very informative and checked on rebates for us (which we didn't qualify for, alas) and looked at various types and settled on one that was the price we had in mind and an Energy Star rating (I know that's kind of bullshit, but there were some for sale that DIDN'T have Energy Star ratings at all!) and would fit into the space as we had measured it just that morning. We wanted it in black, so it had to be ordered, delivered to the store, and then delivered to our house, at which point the delivery guys would take away the old one. Yay.
It was delivered yesterday morning. We emptied the old one and started steam mopping that poor neglected floor and the Lowes truck showed up and took the old fridge away. They brought in the new one, lined it up in the space and - it didn't fit.
Okay, I'm just gonna turn this into a regular journal entry, maybe with those tweets inserted if I remember they are there when I get to that part, because there is a lot of narrative to get through. Exposition. Whatever.
When we bought this house, it came with a fridge Which was nice, because while I understand many people in California have to buy fridges while they are renting, I never have, so I was fairly pleased that I still didn't have to. We went on using the free one, even though it's shelving and door arrangements were unwieldy and inconvenient, and it only had one crisper drawer that only sort of fit into its space. But free!
And then it started collecting water. Pools of water on the floor of the refrigerated compartment all the time. At first I thought it was spillage so I'd just clean it up, but more would appear. And things on the tops shelf would freeze. So I got a fridge/freezer thermometer and started adjusting the controls, trying to maintain a stable temperature. Giving each adjustment 24 hours to stabilize makes that a sloooooow process.
I've gotten hooked on Trader Joe's soy ice cream sandwiches, they are delicious and I always want to have them available in my freezer. Now, the way I learned to tell if a freezer was at the "right" temperature, was by ice cream consistency - if the ice cream is soupy, freezer should be colder; too hard to scoop, warm it up a bit. So every time the ice cream sandwiches were not quite the right firmness, which was every time I had one, I'd tweak the freezer settings appropriately.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, the ice cream sandwiches were perfect and I rejoiced that I finally had the freezer right and decided not to mess with the fridge settings anymore because the two seemed to be interconnected somehow - like bra band and cup sizes, changing one probably necessitates a change in the other.
And then a week or so later, my ice cream sandwiches were way too soft.
And, of course, the fridge had recently filled with water from the last time I had wet-vacced it out.
So DH and I pulled out the fridge to see if we could see anything in the back that might help - if the water line was hooked up in some bizarre fashion, for example, or if coils obviously needed cleaning or something. Well, we came to no real conclusions about the fridge (except that the water line was NOT hooked up at all (which was kind of a relief) but seeing behind a fridge that had never been pulled out and cleaned behind (never by us, and judging by the accumulation possibly never by the previous owners, either) was too much for DH and he had to go lie down. Seriously.
So we decided to buy a new fridge.
We did no research - we were going to Lowes to get a small patio table I'd found online anyway, so we just hit the refrigerator section while we were there. The saleslady was very informative and checked on rebates for us (which we didn't qualify for, alas) and looked at various types and settled on one that was the price we had in mind and an Energy Star rating (I know that's kind of bullshit, but there were some for sale that DIDN'T have Energy Star ratings at all!) and would fit into the space as we had measured it just that morning. We wanted it in black, so it had to be ordered, delivered to the store, and then delivered to our house, at which point the delivery guys would take away the old one. Yay.
It was delivered yesterday morning. We emptied the old one and started steam mopping that poor neglected floor and the Lowes truck showed up and took the old fridge away. They brought in the new one, lined it up in the space and - it didn't fit.
- 09:26 Bwahaha! I *thought* I measured the space for the refrigerator correctly. Turns out, NSM. Half inch of counter trim in the way. #fb
- 11:28 Turns out, I forgot that none of the lines in my house are straight. New fridge, very straight lines. New angle grinder may solve this. #fb
- 14:31 Brick-specific chisel FTW
- 16:38 Fridge is in its nook, food is in the fridge. Whew. #fb
It looked like if we just took off the trim on the edge of the counter it would fit, so we got out the Wonderbar and took care of that. Still wouldn't quite fit.
Now, I don't know if y'all know this, but I am a Measurer of Stuff. I make graph paper sketches of my living spaces so I can decide where the furniture goes. I have tape measures in every room in case I need to determine the dimensions of anything. So I was distressed that my measuring was impugned.
Of course, I did not actually measure the fridge at the store, I took their word for it. But that wasn't really the problem. Once we had the fridge line up with the space, it was clear that it would fit just fine at points, but the left wall leaned in just a bit and got in the way. This wall is part of what is clearly a later addition - someone decided that the coat closet would be better used holding an oven and microwave and built this brick facade around the whole thing, one wall of which is to the left of the fridge (my left, facing the fridge, not the fridge's left). It's kind of like really thick wallpaper, this brick facade an eighth or a quarter inch thick.
So, it looked a matter of millimeters and I googled how to cut bricks and the answers all seemed to come up angle grinder. So we got an angle grinder, and a mortar wheel and a wood wheel, why not? And we did some grinding and it was very slow and smelled terrible and we had forgotten to get dust masks anyway, so I went back to the hardware store and got chisels (and ventilator masks and mallets because you can never have too many mallets). The cashier recognised me from the angle grinder purchase and we chatted about how very useful mallets are, and how they seem to hide when you want them.
Got out to my car and someone had squeezed into the not-a-parking-space between me and the handicapped spot so I couldn't get to the driver's side door. Grr. I stood around for a little while hoping that whoever it was was just running into the store for a second and would pop right back out, but no. I was able to crawl in through the passenger side (I wasn't sure I"d be able to, crawling over bucket seats is fraught with peril), and the guy who was parked in the handicapped spot came out while I was waiting and chatted with me about what a drag it was but how it was no use getting mad which actually restore my equanimity quite a bit because he was right, no point in being mad, I'm sure I have inconvenienced people with my parking at times.
Picked up Double Down combos at KFC out of curiosity. Not great. Not terrible. It was odd to be eating the "sandwich" and reach with relief for the french fries because they were not quite so full of fat. Dog got the end of mine, which he was very happy about.
So, with the chisel we were able to make a mostly nice clean line at the corner and rip off all the brick from where the top of the refrigerator would meet the wall down to 6 or 8 inches off the floor, where the space was actually big enough to encompass both fridge and brick. Took all day, taking turns wielding the chisel. It's a simple machine, but you have to use force. The stonemason does all the work
That was extremely satisfying. Place the chisel, tap-tap-tap, crack, brick into bucket-o-bricks. Tap-tap-tap goes on for longer, of course. Now we have two 5-gal buckets full of brick scrap that I may or may not be able to find a use for. It's, like, a quarter of an inch thick, maybe, and some stuck to drywall.
Did not, to be clear use the mallets with the chisel. Used a ball peen hammer as specified by the chisel packaging. Worked a treat. Reminds me a little of rappelling in that drawing the force diagram in my head while I do it helps my technique. As my husband said - what would we do without theta?
Now we just have to crawl under the house and turn on the water, and hook up the water line to the fridge. I hope that's simpler.
Once we got all our food back out of the coolers and into the new fridge and freezer - it's a lot more space than we used to have. 3 drawers! Easily configurable shelving! Usable door shelves! Everything is clear so I can see what's in the drawers and on the door! i'm gonna have to go grocery shopping today, fill it up a little.
And get all the magnets back on it, of course.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-30 06:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-30 06:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-01 01:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-01 02:15 pm (UTC)I have stuck one magnet on it already, so I know that works. Would've been a real shock if it didn't!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-01 06:51 pm (UTC)I'm a little concerned that all the frozen meat in the freezer may have been ruined by thawing a little and refreezing. How would I even know?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-01 08:50 pm (UTC)Yup, the remedy for this particular problem seems to be "get a new fridge". Working well for me so far! As a bonus, we can now walk past the fridge when the door is open, which we couldn't before. Makes actual food preparation so much easier!