Refrigerator not working???

[CathyA]

I'm bummed. I decided to totally clean out my 25 year old GE fridge today. I took out all the food and put it in coolers. I took out all the shelving and took it apart and totally cleaned everything.
I did have the thought while I was cleaning "what if it doesn't work now??" Well, I plugged it back in and it started up. I came back 30 minutes later and it was making sounds like it was doing it's defrost thing, and the temp was going up. It finally came back on, but the temp is not cooling.

Do you think I'm expecting too much for it to rapidly cool the fridge and freezer down? It's been cooling for about 45 minutes and the 2 thermometers I have in there and not moving.
I will be sooooooo bummed if my cleaning broke it. I spent 2 hard hours cleaning it and all my food is in 3 big coolers.

Any experience with it? See..........I just shouldn't have cleaned it!!

[Jilly]

That is why I try to never clean anything.:~)

[ToomuchStuff]

Did you clean out the coils and compressor area? (if not could you have dropped dirt and clogged them)

[CathyA]

Thanks Jilly and TMS. I guess I freaked out a little prematurely. I had the fridge unplugged and was working on it for about 2 hours. Then, once I started it up with nothing in it, the auto defrost came on, which heated everything up (since there wasn't any cold or frozen food in there to counteract the warming). But now, it's slowly cooling down. I did put everything back in the fridge to help it cool, once I saw it was working.

I just found information saying that when you get a new fridge, give it 24-48 hours to cool down........so I guess I was ignorant about how long it would take it to cool back down.
Yesterday, I cleaned out my big freezer, and it didn't take long to cool down.......but I had put alot of frozen stuff back in there, so that probably helped.

Jilly.........I've learned my lesson. I'm not going to clean anything again. haha
Actually......I'm embarrassed to say this, but I have never totally cleaned it out before. I have always wiped the shelves down....but never took them out. I thought it would be a much easier job. I started to realize that there was "stuff" on edges of shelves, so I began taking the shelves out and realized that there were many more parts to things than I realized. I started to feel overwhelmed.......like I might not be able to figure out how to put everything back. I pictured DH coming home and finding everything in the fridge.......just not any of the shelves. hahaha

Fortunately........I guess I'm not as dumb as I look, 'cause I got it all put back together, and nothing has collapsed yet. I found an antique package of string cheese that had fallen behind a shelf.
Maybe I'll sell it on eBay. :)

Dang.......I'm exhausted now!