Bullet Dodged

The other day Jen asked me if I noticed anything wrong with our fridge; the milk seemed to be spoiling quickly, which was out of the ordinary. We put a thermometer inside and were shocked to find it above 50˚, which meant something was extremely wrong. Jen and I emptied it out, stuffing the 70-year-old IH fridge in the garage with food and filling the freezers in the basement with as much as we could. Consulting the interwebs, I found a video by a mushmouthed repairman working on the exact model of Frigidaire we own, who demonstrated how to test the inverter module next to the compressor. I busted out my multimeter and followed his instructions, getting the same result he did. Rolling the dice, I ordered a replacement part on the Jungle Site for $100, and then used a shop-vac to clean about thirty pounds of dust and hair from the coils and fan under the fridge. Helpfully, Frigidaire hid all this stuff behind a panel so that it could collect without being seen; I’ve cleaned the front…