Just Wondering . . . . . . Do Ya'll Wonder What Possesses Me to Share Some Stuff?

Drip Pan Under Every Fridge

 I have a really gross picture to share with all of you.  Brace your selves. . .  Here it is . . .  Oops!  Forgot to tell you to hold your nose. . . .I can smell it all over again just looking at the picture  (I checked, it's all in my mind).

This is the drip tray under the refrigerator.   We all have them.  This is actually only one of three compartments, joined by narrow channels going behind the compressor or condenser, or something like that . . .which made it impossible to get out.

Evidently the little 2" puddle of meat drippings in the bottom of the fridge, right next to the vent looking place (which is now known to be a drain) was all that didn't go down to the catch pan.  It dried out and stopped smelling but then when the humidity hit, it got nice and moist and probably got even more rancid.

I am sharing this to hopefully help others avoid this little problem.  If we had pulled the fridge out when it first happened, it would have been icky but no where near as bad to clean out . . . which was my part in this little project.  Even after soaking in cleaner stuff, it was gooey and hard to scrape out, especially in the narrow channels behind the equipment.  It can be done and would cost several hundred dollars to have it done by a repairman, mainly in labor costs.  It looked like all of the cooling apparatus would have had to be removed to actually get the thing out, which of course would have lost all or some of the refrigerant and accrued even more expense.

Now, there were some signs which should have told me where the smell was coming from there.  There was no smell until we opened the doors.  It would blast forth and then disappear.  We sniffed all over the fridge and could not tell where it was coming from.  So I cleaned it for the second time in less than a week.  That was when I found the little 2" puddle.  We have realized that the smell was being sucked up through the drain pipe from the pan and into the fridge when the doors opened, creating a brief vacuum.   Since the pan was made of plastic, I sprinkled a layer of baking soda in the pan, all of the surface that I could, even in the narrow channels, to deodorize and absorb liquids in the future.  From now on, when we change the water filter, that will also be checked and cleaned on a regular basis.

Hope this saves someone else some real grief done the road!