By keeping your refrigerator coils or fan clean, you can improve its energy efficiency each month.

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Want To Be More Energy Efficient? Clean Your Refrigerator Coils

When it comes to making your home more energy efficient, cleaning your refrigerator coils or fan might be one of the cheapest things that you can do.  It can also help prevent future home insurance claims! 

It doesn’t require much in the way of technical equipment or know-how; you just need to know where to look.  By keeping your refrigerator coils or fan clean, you can improve its energy efficiency each month.

When two things of different temperatures are near each other, the hotter surface cools and the colder surface warms.  That transfer of heat is the principle behind refrigeration, where a motor and a pump push a gas refrigerant (such as Freon) through coils, where it cools down and becomes a liquid, soaking up heat in the fridge and freezer, and cooling everything inside.

When your refrigerator coils are dirty with dust or pet hair, the refrigeration process is hindered, which can prevent the appliance from cooling properly and efficiently.  

More than that, though, and because there are thermodynamics involved, cleaning your coils can help prevent potential fires and home insurance claims. 

How to clean refrigerator coils

To keep your fridge humming, you should clean the coils every six months to a year (more often if you have shedding pets).  It doesn’t take long, it’s easy and definitely something you shouldn’t avoid.

1. Unplug the fridge and locate the coils, which live either at the bottom of the appliance or in back of it. Older models have exposed coils mounted on the back of the refrigerator. Newer models place the coils at the bottom behind a toe space panel or at the back behind a rear access panel.
2. After you expose the coils, vacuum them with a crevice or upholstery tool to remove the biggest debris.Suck up dirt on, above and below the coils. While you're at it, vacuum the floor under and behind the fridge, too.
3. Shove a duster or refrigerator coil brush (about $5 and designed for this exact purpose) between the coils, and clean the rest of the dust, hair and dirt still clinging to the coils. Position your vacuum under the brush to catch falling debris.
4. Replace the panel and you're done—and can look forward to plenty of perfectly cooled groceries in your future.

At Preferred Mutual, we encourage you to take the time to perform necessary maintenance on your appliances to ensure that dust, lint, pet hair, or any other flammable materials are cleared away. 

Your home may be the biggest investment you ever make, so don’t get burned.  Get the protection you need and coverage you trust with Preferred Mutual Homeowner’s Insurance.  We’ll make you feel right at home – Now, that’s living assured.