Refrigerator Repair near you

Some no-cooling calls end with a technician turning a dial back or vacuuming a coil. The checks below need no tools beyond a vacuum and involve no electrical or refrigerant parts. Unplug the fridge before cleaning anything at the back or underneath.

Health Canada recommends setting your refrigerator at 4 °C (40 °F) or lower and your freezer at -18 °C (0 °F) or lower. The numbers on the control dial aren't temperatures, so an appliance thermometer in each compartment is the only reliable way to know where you stand.

When a fridge fails, Health Canada's emergency food-safety advice applies: don't open the doors unless you have to. An unopened refrigerator keeps food cold for about 4 hours, a full freezer keeps food frozen for about 48 hours and a half-full one for about 24 hours. Check the thermometers to judge whether the food stayed cold enough, move perishables to a cooler with ice or to a working fridge if the repair can't happen soon, and don't taste doubtful food to decide whether to keep it.

An ice maker adds a water line, a valve and a fill tube to the fridge. A dribbling dispenser, small or hollow cubes, or no ice at all usually trace back to one of a few causes.

Most fridge repairs happen outside the sealed system: fans, defrost parts, sensors, control boards, gaskets, water valves and drain lines. These parts can be swapped without touching the refrigerant, and on a cabinet in good shape they're often worth doing. A fault inside the sealed system, such as a failed compressor or a leaking evaporator or condenser, is a different job. The refrigerant has to be recovered, the leak repaired, the system evacuated and recharged, all by a qualified technician, and that is when comparing with a new unit becomes a real question.

Other factors weigh in: a cracked inner liner, rust along the cabinet or door edges, parts that are no longer made, and how the fridge fits the kitchen. A built-in or panel-ready model sized to a custom opening can be harder to replace than a freestanding one, which makes repair more attractive. If you do replace it, the EnerGuide label on new models lets you compare their annual energy use.

In Quebec, the provincial halocarbon regulation reserves installing, servicing, repairing, modifying or dismantling a refrigeration appliance that runs on a halocarbon refrigerant to people who hold the environmental halocarbon qualification. The same regulation prohibits releasing halocarbons into the air and requires that they be recovered in containers designed for the purpose.

In Ontario, the province states that only a certified technician may remove, discharge, handle and dispose of refrigerants, whether they contain ozone-depleting substances or other halocarbons. The certificate alone isn't enough to fix refrigeration equipment, for example as a refrigerator mechanic: that also takes the right trade qualification. Other provinces have their own rules, so ask any technician who will open the sealed system which certificate they hold.

An old fridge still holds refrigerant and oil, so it shouldn't be cut apart, stripped for scrap or left to leak. Where a unit is dismantled, the refrigerant has to be recovered first by a qualified person.