View single post by PCM2
 Posted: Sun May 8th, 2005 07:33 pm
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PCM2

 

Joined: Sun May 8th, 2005
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 I recently moved into a new apartment, which has a basically brand-new refrigerator. It's a General Electric GTS16KBR, purchased in September 2004, according to the papers in my cupboard. My problem is that this thing is amazingly obnoxious! The manual cautions me that "newer refrigerators sound different than old ones" -- but to me that seems like no excuse; technology must be marching backward at an alarming pace if this is what people are putting up with from refrigerators these days.

As a child, I remember being pretty much oblivious to the function of the refrigerator. You opened it, cold things came out of it. End of story. This thing, though ... I think I have been consciously aware of it every time it has turned on since I've moved in here -- and it turns on for about ten minutes every half hour.

"WHIRRRRRRRRRRIIRRRIIRIRIRRRR!" That's all I can say about it. It's not a totally unnatural sounding noise -- meaning, it doesn't sound like anything's grinding or breaking. It's just a ridiculously obnoxious appliance. When it turns on, I sometimes have to turn up the TV to be able to hear dialog. When I'm in the bedroom, I need to close the door not to be able to hear it. It's actually about as noisy as my Maytag dishwasher (which, I might add, is a remarkable example of technology making something quieter -- but the dishwasher doesn't run all day long, the fridge does!)

So my question to y'all is: Does this jibe with your understanding of modern GE refrigerators? Are they all this loud?

I guess I'm holding out the vague hope that there's something wrong with it that can be corrected. The manual says, "you may hear the fans spinning at high speeds. This happens when the refrigerator is first plugged in, when the doors are opened frequently or whan a large amount of food is added to the refrigerator or freezer compartments." Well I hear high-speed fans all the time! But I don't want to spend a couple hundred bucks to have a repair guy come out here just to tell me that I have a crappy, noisy fridge.