7 Steps To Help You Wash The Fridge And Eliminate Smells With 8 Home Remedies

How often do you need to wash the refrigerator?

In addition to daily revisions of products and wiping the walls of the chamber, you need to carry out more extensive cleanings from time to time.

• It is optimal to carry out on-call care of the refrigerator without defrosting once a week – you need to wipe it from the outside and from the inside, including the rubber seal, discard everything excess that has accumulated during the week;
• Thorough cleaning of the best outdoor refrigerator with defrosting from this list https://refrigeratorfaq.com/outdoor-refrigerator/, like Bull Outdoor Products 11001 is best carried out once a month, then ice will not form in the freezer, reducing the efficiency of the work, and unpleasant odors will not appear in the refrigerator. However, if you are not a perfectionist, and your refrigerator is working properly and even has the function of no-frost, then one cleaning per quarter will be enough.

7 Steps

So, how to wash the refrigerator?

1. Empty the refrigerator. Throw away everything that has deteriorated, put perishable and frozen foods in a container, and then put it in a cool and dark place or in a basin with cold water and ice.

2. Defrost the refrigerator by first adjusting the temperature to zero and then unplugging it. Keep the refrigeration and freezer doors open. As a rule, defrosting lasts from 3 to 10 hours.

How to quickly defrost a refrigerator? The following methods will help speed up the process: 

• put a small pot of boiled water in an empty refrigerator and close the door. Once the water has cooled, drain it and refill the container with boiling water. Repeat this until the freezer defrosts; 
• or cut a small hole in the lid of the plastic bottle and fill the bottle itself with boiling water, then carefully irrigate the ice with it – this will help it thaw and crumble faster.

3. Next, start washing the shelves, containers and soiled packaged products. While the freezer is defrosting, remove all shelves, containers and side racks, and put them near the sink or in the bathroom.

4. We clean the condenser in the back of the refrigerator from dust. This can be done using a vacuum cleaner or a long narrow brush.

5. After the refrigerator defrosts, proceed to washing the inside of it. But first you need to drain the melt water from the pan if there is a lot of it (if there was not enough ice, then you don’t have to do this, because the water itself will evaporate over time).

Washing should start from top to bottom, paying particular attention to the far walls, corners and recesses. Be sure to clean and disinfect the drain hole on the back of the camera – it is usually this that is a source of unpleasant odor in the refrigerator. To do this, you can pour the cleaning solution directly into there with an injector or a syringe. Lastly, clean the rubber seal with an old toothbrush, and then wipe it dry. It is better to leave the door open until the walls of the refrigerator are completely dry.

You can make home-made solutions for cleaning and pour them into the spray bottles.

Recipe for soda solution: it is done in an amount of 2 tbsp. per 1 liter / 33.8 oz of water. For washing the refrigerator you will need approximately 5 liters / 169 oz of water. Wash the entire fridge chamber with the solution, and then remove the remnants of the soda with a clean rag;

Vinegar based recipe: make a solution in an amount of 2 tbsp. per 1 liter / 33.8 oz of water, then wipe the entire chamber with it.

Attention! Rubber pads should not be wiped with vinegar, as this will cause them to dry out and deteriorate;

In order to eliminate the smell in the new refrigerator, vinegar solution is the best one.

6. Now wash the outside of the refrigerator. You can do this with the same solution.

7. Put all the shelves and containers back in the fridge, place all the products in and turn the refrigerator on.

It is important that all boxes, cans, bottles, bags and containers are dry.

8 popular ways to get rid of the smell in the refrigerator

To eliminate the unpleasant smell in the refrigerator, you can buy a ready-made odor absorbed or make a similar one at home. 

To remove odors of mold, stale fish, meat, onions, etc. you need to: 

• Wash the chamber with a solution of wine vinegar and water (the method is suitable for removing strong odors); 
• Cut brown bread into slices, put it on the shelves and close the refrigerator for a day; 
• Put a saucer with activated carbon on the shelf (or you can tie it in gauze pad/bag); 
• Put 2 halves of cut lemon in the refrigerator; 
• Put a gauze bag with sugar or rice in the fridge; 
• Put tea bags or gauze bags with black tea in the fridge; 
• Pour baking soda into a glass and put it on the shelf; 
• Put a glass with vanilla extract into the fridge.