Refrigerator Moving Advice Please

[polkanut]

I have to agree with Kenny "Goatfarmer".  When we moved the 1972 Frigidaire Cycla-Matic that we have in our basement, I just left it sit for 24 hours, then plugged it in.  Have not touched the controls since we brought it home in 1998.

 

[washer111]

@polkanut

I wouldn't say it's 100% necessary to adjust the controls, but if Melissa wants to have the perfect temp in the fridge, then she may have to experiment.

But running at coldest isn't needed, I was just saying she might want to do that to get the refrigerator nice 'n' cold. As long as you let it stabilise before adding stuff after starting (for an old timer like this, I'd give it plenty of time to settle in), then you shouldn't need it at coldest - but you might for the reasons i've mentioned in previous posts

 

[rickr]

General Electric combos

Hi Melissa. Congratulations on your GE combo. I am sure you will love this fridge. I have the 1948 version, which is about the same as you model. I have the owners manual to mine. It states to start out with the freezer control (behind the swing out kick panel in front) at position #5, and do the same with the refrigerator control in the refrigerator compartment, set at #5, and go from there. My freezer control is always set at #4, and the refrigerator control is always set at #6

Ice (and sweat) will build up slightly in the refrigerator compartment, but will melt and drain away into the pan below the refrigerator. This is a normal condition with this type of refrigerator, and this is according to the owners manual.

These are great refrigerators, even though they are small in comparison to todays models. They are VERY energy efficient. We have been using ours for almost 3 years, and we LOVE it. We use the crisper drawers for most things that would be stored in the door shelves in a modern fridge to save space. We also have another GE made Hotpoint fridge in the basement for "overflow" items.
I will post the owners manual for you.

 

[rickr]

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[rickr]

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You can save the pics of the manual to your pictures, and expand them to make them easier to read if you like. Most of the rest of the manual is of old recipes, and such, so I won't bother posting those.

I tip on defrosting: I simply put the freezer items in the sink, shut the freezer control to "off" and place one of the crisper bins under the drain below the freezer (above on the right side of the refrigerator section). I then use an old Conair blow dryer to help melt the ice in the freezer. I remove what chunks fall, and throw them into the sink. I wipe everything out in the fridge while the hair dryer is melting the ice in the freezer. Wipe everything out freezer and fridge, wash the drip pan under the kick panel, and put everything back and set the freezer control back to #4 And the job is done for several more months. This only takes about 45 minutes from start to finish with the help of the old hair dryer, so it' not that bad. The longer the freezer is open (and more often) the sooner ice will build up.

 

[washer111]

@rickr

It seems my thoughts of this as a standard "cyclic defrost" model were wrong! Two separate refrigeration systems? Hmmm. I get the impression that would improve the reliability of the thing, since if one breaks, the other compartment stays cool (fingers crossed the fridge compartment would die [if anything was going to], since frozen food is more expensive/harder to replace).

 

[melissa]

Welcome Home!!

Thank you all for your incredibly helpful advice - My fridge is now home and working. I set the fridge on a middle setting and freezer on the warmest setting and I have frost in both already - so I'll have to play around with the settings a bit. I still have nothing in there because I want to do some restoration first. Hopefully once I get some food in there it will stop working quite so well : )

I'm going to start a new thread (I hope that's what I'm supposed to do) because I need some restoration advice - for those of you who have beautiful vintage fridges (and a surprising number of you have old fridges), I'd love to hear what you did to make yours look so nice.

Thanks again!

 

[polkanut]

Melissa,

<span style="font-family: terminal,monaco; font-size: small;">The best person here to talk to about doing expert restorations is RickR who posted the instruction book pics.  His projects always turn out fantastic.   </span>