Refrigerator smell

We used the charcoal method after have food spoiling for 2 weeks in a refrig. It took a while and we kept replacing the charcoal every few days. Everything is great now.

When we moved in the military, the mover said to use either -

plain charcoal in old pantyhose so you could wind it around on the shelves and contain it.

or

dried used coffee - said after making morning coffee, pour grounds onto paper towels to dry, then place this into used panty hose or something else that is porous, but so it will not have grounds all over the freezer.

either one of those plus crumbled newspaper to help absorb moisture.

When we got the freezer delivered 2 months later, no mold. We used the plain charcoal, then used it later - out of the pantyhose - to make burgers.

I have placed charcoal in mine after I neglected to prop door open before storing. It absorbs oder pretty well.

A large bag of the natural charlcoal at Lowes is pretty cheap. When I took it out I put it back into bag and used it at next campfire!

RoyB wrote:
... Never could find the so-called drip pan inside the trailer. My setup has a plugged hose that extends out the back of the outside fridge vent but I could never tell where it came from without moving the fridge out. I understand now that hose is actually more of an inside vent then discharge of fluids.

My trailer has a black hose sticking out of a vent like this on the outside of the trailer that has something to do with the fridge...



Roy Ken

Roy......inside fridge section just under the cooling fins should be a condensation pan that has a drain hole on it that goes thru back wall of fridge. That tube connects to that pan so condensation from fins can flow to outside of rig.
In the end of that tube is a 'bug plug' so critters can not crawl up tube to inside of fridge.


OP...stinky smell
Wipe everything down with a cloth soaked in vinegar
then wipe everything down with a damp rag using clean water
then use coffee grounds, wadded up newspapers definitely work they just take time.

Have not found any thing that quickly removes the stink

after wiping everything down with just sitting a open dish of plain ole Folgers Coffee does wonders for us... I am still however trying to clean up a 20lbd then frozen turkey that thawed out over a couple of months after one of the hurricanes went thru here and killed the county power for over a week. Then I borrowed the cable for the other trailer keeping us in 120VAC where we needed it running from my 2KW truck tail gate generator. When I went back to power up the fifth wheel I said man something has died around here at the edge of the woods where I have the fifth wheel parked....

20lb turkey turned to mush sure isn't a pretty site hehe... This turkey certainly got even with his last stand...

I pretty much got 99 percent of the smell gone but it still lingers when you first open the door. Probably no one else will notice it but I know its there and I do haha... It is funny after you power the fridge back up how it gets rid the lingering smell as well...

After simple clean up methods and dismantling everything I could inside the fridge it did pretty good. I unscrewed all kinds of panels etc to clean up on both side etc... Never could find the so-called drip pan inside the trailer. My setup has a plugged hose that extends out the back of the outside fridge vent but I could never tell where it came from without moving the fridge out. I understand now that hose is actually more of an inside vent then discharge of fluids.

My trailer has a black hose sticking out of a vent like this on the outside of the trailer that has something to do with the fridge...


After the big clean up effort then I started leaving waded up news papers and bowls of fresh Folgers coffee which really worked good over several weeks. I was changing that out every few days. Sure is funny how newspapers absorbs in the smell... It does work...

Someone told me about a BOMB type product that is suppose to work just for this problem that the BOAT folks use but I never picked any up - have forgot the name now.

Could do a google search I guess... If you knew the name AMAZON would most likely have it available.

I imagine some folks just changes out the fridge but that sure isn't cheap... My fridge still works great...

Roy Ken

You can try getting a little dish and opening several boxes of baking soda, dumping them in the dish and closing the fridge w/ the power on and set at very cold.

You can make a mixture of this w/ water and just wipe the interior of the whole fridge w/ the damp cloth.

You can also try using some of the traditional cleaners, but then you end up with a chemically smelling fridge.

That's all I got!

WoodGlue