On Wednesday, July 3, 2013 3:54:48 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Wednesday, July 3, 2013 1:32:22 AM UTC-4, nestork wrote:

I like to think I know a fair bit about fridges, but I don't know what

you mean by "vent". Is this an air duct on the back wall of the fridge

with a baffle of some sort on it? Or are you referring to something on

the outside of the fridge.



Hi, nestork,



Yes, I do have to explain this. I've never seen a fridge design like this before, but I assumed that it was because I'm a throwback from a bygone era. From my past, a normal fridge has an array of coils spread out over the back side.



This fridge is not like that. The back side is a solid wall. The coils are at the lower back corner of the fridge, and located inside of the rectangular volume of the fridge. In fact, it is hidden by a removal portion of the fridge's back wall. The coils are not spread out into a sheet, but stacked into a 3D cube. The fan is located between the coil stack and the compressor. It draws air across the coil stack and pushes it into the compressor. The compressor felt much warmer than the coils, so even the the air is warmed by its initial pass over the coils, it is still usable to cool the compressor. All 3 parts (coil stack, fan, compressor) are located *within* the rectangular volume of the fridge, at the lower back corner.



All the air that is driven by the fan to cool the coils and compressor is vented out the front of the fridge through openings at the bottom. How the air gets from the lower back part of the fridge to the front, I don't know. Some mechanical duct magic. And I don't know where the intake is either. I'll try to get at the back and take a picture.



No, if there was enough refrigerant leaking out of that fridge for

you to smell it, then the fridge wouldn't be working properly. Or,

it would be getting very much worse even as you read this.



Well it's a good sign that the deterioration hasn't been happening. I wasn't worried about refrigerant, however. More about machine oil or lubricant.