A fridge that has stopped cooling is not always a compressor problem. Work through the door seal, the thermostat, the vents and the back coil first — several of those you can sort out yourself in an afternoon.
A fridge failing in the middle of a Rohtas May is a bad week. Milk turns by afternoon, vegetables go limp, and the first instinct is to assume the compressor has gone and the machine is finished.
It often has not. Go through the checks below in order, because the easy ones are also the common ones. By the time you reach the end you will know whether this is a job for you or for a technician.
First, describe the symptom precisely
These three complaints are different faults, and telling them apart saves everybody time:
- Nothing is cold anywhere, freezer included.
- The freezer is cold but the lower compartment is not. This is a very common pattern and it usually has nothing to do with the compressor.
- It cools, but not as much as it used to.
The checks you can make yourself
1. The door seal
Start here. The rubber gasket around the door hardens with age and with heat, and once it stops sealing the fridge is fighting an open door all day.
Test it with a strip of paper. Close the door on it and pull. If it slides out easily, the seal is weak at that point. Try it at several places around the door, especially the hinge side and the bottom corners.
Also check that the door actually closes on its own and that a tall bottle or an overfilled tray is not holding it open by a few millimetres. A fridge in a Bihar summer with a poor seal will run constantly, ice up, and still not cool.
2. Thermostat setting
People turn the knob down in winter to save electricity and then forget about it in April. Check where the dial is set. In peak summer, when the room itself is above 40°C, the fridge needs a colder setting than it did in January.
If the dial has been set correctly and nothing changes when you move it across its full range, the thermostat itself may have failed. That is a technician job but a small one — a thermostat is an inexpensive part compared with anything in the sealed system.
3. Overpacking and blocked vents
Cold air has to circulate. In most fridges, cold comes down from the freezer through vents at the back of the upper shelf area. If those vents are packed solid with containers, a large tiffin box or a stacked tray, the cold never reaches the lower shelves.
This is exactly the "freezer cold, fridge warm" complaint. Pull everything out, find the vents, and leave them clear. Leave gaps between items generally — a tightly packed fridge cools worse, not better.
4. Frost build-up and defrost problems
In a direct-cool fridge, a thick sheet of ice on the freezer plate insulates it and stops it cooling the compartment below. Defrost it fully — switch the fridge off, leave the doors open, let the ice melt on its own, and mop the water.
Never chip ice off with a knife or a screwdriver. The cooling pipes run inside that plate. Puncturing one turns a free afternoon's defrosting into a major repair.
In a frost-free fridge, visible frost inside means the automatic defrost system has failed — usually the heater, the defrost timer or a sensor. That needs a technician, and it is a repair worth doing on an otherwise healthy machine.
5. Dust on the back coil
Turn the fridge around and look at the black grid at the back. That is the condenser, and it gets rid of the heat the fridge pulls out of your food. Coated in dust and lint it cannot do that, so cooling weakens and the compressor runs far longer than it should.
This matters more here than in most places. Road dust in Sasaram, Kudra and Mohania settles heavily, and a fridge pushed flat against a wall in a narrow kitchen collects it faster.
Switch the fridge off at the socket, brush or vacuum the coil, and leave a hand's width of clearance behind and above the cabinet. Chhath and Diwali cleaning is the natural time to do it, but do not wait until then if the fridge is struggling in June.
Before any cleaning or defrosting: unplug the fridge at the socket, not just at the switch, and keep water away from the compressor and the wiring at the back. If you can smell burning, see a scorched mark near the plug, or feel a tingle on the cabinet, stop and call someone — that is an electrical fault, not a cooling fault.
Where it needs a technician
6. The compressor is not starting
Put your hand on the compressor — the black cylinder at the bottom rear. When the fridge is running it should be warm and gently vibrating.
What you may find instead:
- Silent and cold. No power reaching it, a failed relay or overload, or a failed thermostat.
- Clicking every few minutes and stopping. The compressor is trying to start and cutting out on overload. Common causes are a failed start relay, a failed capacitor, or supply voltage that is too low.
- Running constantly and very hot, with no cooling. Usually a refrigerant leak or a blockage in the sealed system.
All three need a technician with a meter. Do not keep switching a clicking fridge on and off to see if it will catch — each attempt heats the motor windings further.
7. Voltage
Our summer evening supply sags, and a fridge is just as vulnerable to it as an AC. Low voltage makes a compressor stall on start, and a stalled compressor repeated night after night does real damage.
If your lights dim at the same times, or if the fridge started misbehaving only in the evenings, a correctly rated stabiliser is the answer. Plug the fridge into its own point, not an extension board shared with other appliances.
What is DIY and what is not
Do yourself: checking the seal, setting the thermostat, unpacking blocked vents, full defrosting, cleaning the back coil, pulling the cabinet away from the wall, clearing the small drain hole at the back of the inside wall.
Leave alone: anything involving refrigerant, opening the compressor compartment, replacing a relay or capacitor, chipping ice off the freezer plate, and any work where you have seen burning or felt a shock.
Is it worth repairing?
An honest answer matters more than a sale. A thermostat, a relay, a door gasket or a defrost heater on an otherwise sound fridge is usually worth replacing. A sealed-system repair or a compressor replacement on a fridge that is already old and rusting at the base often is not, and we will say so.
Our charges for refrigerator repair and service are on the rate list, GST extra, spare parts billed at actual cost after we tell you the price. Call +91 96315 11974 between 8:00 AM and 6:30 PM any day, or book on the contact page for a callback within the hour. Same-day visits are possible across Rohtas, Kaimur and Aurangabad — Sasaram, Dehri-on-Sone, Nokha and Bhabhua among them. The full list is on the service areas page.
Frequently asked questions
Cold air reaches the lower compartment through vents at the back of the upper shelf area. When those are blocked by packed containers, or a thick sheet of frost has built up on the freezer plate, the cold never gets down. Empty the fridge, clear the vents and defrost it fully before assuming anything is broken.
The compressor is attempting to start and cutting out on its overload protector. The usual causes are a failed start relay, a failed capacitor, or supply voltage too low to get it turning. Stop switching it on and off, because each attempt heats the motor windings further. This needs a technician with a meter.
Close the door on a strip of paper and pull it out. If it slides out with no grip, the seal has failed at that spot. Test several points around the door, especially the hinge side and bottom corners. A hardened gasket makes the fridge run non-stop in summer and is a straightforward part to replace.
It depends on which part has failed. A thermostat, relay, door gasket or defrost heater on a fridge that is otherwise sound is usually worth replacing. A sealed-system repair or a compressor replacement on a fridge already old and rusting at the base often is not, and a technician should tell you that plainly before starting.
Want a hand with this?
Book a technician at home across Sasaram, Rohtas, Kaimur and Aurangabad. Prices fixed up front, a bill for every job.