I like my fridge (Maytag) a lot. It's been my loyal food-and-beverage-cooler for about 15 years now, maybe more.

Sometimes I hear it making a little funny noise, most of the time it's easily ignorable. It goes for a bit, then fades away.

Tonight, though, the "little funny noise" has been way more noticeable and way less ignorable. It's louder, and it can only be referred to as a buzz.

It's not terribly unusual, and most of the time it only lasts a couple of minutes. As I write this now, it seems like it's been on "buzz mode" for about 10-15 minutes. I don't have a guess or a clue what's causing it.

Educate me, please. Thank you.

Compressor or fan, maybe?

This just in... I bumped it a little, and some of the noise went away. Then I opened and closed the door ("stop staring in the fridge, vthoky!") and it got a LOT quieter.

Mine was making an annoying buzzy noise. I pulled it out, removed the service panel, and cleaned the dust off the fan and coils. Noise is gone.

What kind of buzz? Where is it coming from, can you isolate it? I had a buzz coming from mine, sounded like a fan hitting, thought it was compressor. Listened around, opened the door and it was coming from inside the freezer. Their is a little fan hidden behind a plastic closeout that hides all the goodies. Somehow(kids pushing frozen shit in too far) deformed the plastic and it rubbed on the fan. I reach through, grab the plastic on the vents and tug and it goes away for a few months, rinse and repeat. There is so much junk inside i don't want to take it all out and do a proper fix, so i just muscle it out every few months.

Maybe loose panel, cover, etc. Screws need to be tightened?

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
This just in... I bumped it a little, and some of the noise went away. Then I opened and closed the door ("stop staring in the fridge, vthoky!") and it got a LOT quieter.

Thats exactly how mine started, i would bump the machine and it would go away, thats why i suspected compressor.
Check the fan inside the freezer and see if some frozen food is jammed all the way in. Maybe the door is pushing something against the back wall.

^^^^^




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Just got in from work, so I haven't gotten to start trying to isolate the source.

I'll go take a look in the freezer now, on jeffxjet's suggestion. Maybe there's some good ice cream in there!

VThoky, we’ve been through that, but it may have been that fan froze up rather than making noise. I got a replacement fan, but defrosting cured everything. Darn that little fan!

Glass bottles rattling to the compressor?

A little ice built up may throw something off balance, or even contact a fan. The next defrost cycle may clear it out.

Might also be dirt/dust buildup. Unplugging and cleaning usually gets me a few more good years.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
^^^^^




- - - - -

Just got in from work, so I haven't gotten to start trying to isolate the source.

I'll go take a look in the freezer now, on jeffxjet's suggestion. Maybe there's some good ice cream in there!

Mmm. Ice cream[/homersimpson]

When my GE started buzzing eventually for longer times the fan froze up. Replaced both,pretty easy to do..

Coiled wires and tubing inside often come in contact with either interior or exterior walls,
When the motor starts up, either it or the compressor might vibrate causing the noise.

Too much beer?

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
Too much beer?

Hardly!

Thank you all for the advice. It looks like the weekend project is to pull the fridge out of its pocket, remove the back panel, and clean out whatever gunk is in there.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
Too much beer?

There is no such thing as too much beer.