If you’ve noticed ice crystals on your frozen foods or condensation in your fridge, check your refrigerator seal. After some troubleshooting, you might be able to repair your refrigerator seal without having to resort to a refrigerator gasket replacement.
Test Refrigerator Seal
First, open your refrigerator’s freezer door and slip a dollar bill against where the gasket seals to the freezer cabinet. Then shut the door to hold the bill in place.
If the bill slips out, your seal isn’t tight.
Repair Refrigerator Seal
Fortunately, in many cases there is something you can do about it. In the past, some manufacturers and care books recommended using Vaseline (petroleum jelly) to help keep the seal in top shape. And while you can still use small amounts of the stuff to help break in a new gasket against the frame, it’s no longer recommended as a long-term fix.
Instead, try our current recommendation. Simply heat the gasket with a hair dryer or warm water, close the door and keep it closed for an hour or so to let the magnet align the gasket. And presto! It should help to extend the life of your refrigerator seal.
In most cases that should do the trick and revive the rubber grip of your fridge’s youth AND keep your foods nice and chilly.
Featured image via LG
Visit Warner’s Stellian if it’s time for a refrigerator or freezer replacement.
What a great idea! Cheap and easy fix (potentially anyway). Thanks for sharing.
Wow – who knew? I should check the seals on my refrigerators and freezers!
Hello,
A leaky fridge can be a pain for a number of reasons, and not only do you risk losing all the food in the fridge, but all that water on the floor can cause potentially serious problems for your floor as well as the fridge itself.
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Wow it’s the things you never think about that leave you amazed at how handy they can really be.
You should NEVER use vaseline on ANY rubber seal – household appliances, cars or otherwise !
Vaseline aka petroleum jelly is a petroleum byproduct.
Petroleum degrades rubber seals !
Use some form of silicone as it prolongs and helps rejuvenate rubber – just be careful to not contaminate your food.