Green Girl

For those of you unfamiliar with Carbon Rally , it’s one of my favorite sites for easy, environmentally friendly tips and challenges that can make a big difference with very little impact on your day-to-day routine. Their new challenge is to clean the coils of your refrigerator.

Who knew that the refrigerator often accounts for 20% of the energy an average household uses!  When we let our refrigerator coils collect dirt, pet hair, dust, and other debris, we force our fridges to work up to 25% harder to regulate the internal temperatures.

Instructions for how to clean your coils follow:

“Compared with other household chores, cleaning the condenser coils on your refrigerator isn’t such a big deal. If you still have your owner’s manual, scan it to find where your coils are located. If you no longer have the manual, the coils are likely to be found behind the little grill at the base of the fridge. To be on the safe side, temporarily cut off the power to the refrigerator before you clean the coils. Either unplug the appliance or flip the appropriate circuit breaker. Next, remove the grill and locate the coils. (If you don’t see any coils beneath the fridge, they must be on the back of the appliance. You’ll need to slide the refrigerator away from the wall so you can get to the coils.) You can either use a bottle brush or your vacuum cleaner with a brush attachment to gently remove any dust and dirt that covers the coils or fins. The more dust you find under or behind the fridge, the happier you’ll be with the results of this Challenge!”

Sign up for the coil-cleaning challenge here.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS