Some items can be trickier than others when moving and the refrigerator is one of them. Many people don’t know how to correctly move their refrigerators and end up breaking them. Whether you’re moving your refrigerator into your new home or straight into storage this is the article for you.
If you have moved your refrigerator to the upright position you can turn your refrigerator on right away. However, if you have put your refrigerator on its side (which is something you should never do) then you will have to wait the same amount of time that you have had it on its side before turning it on.
If the refrigerator has been on its side for 30 minutes then you will need to stand the refrigerator up for 30 minutes and then turn it on. If the refrigerator has been on its side for 24 hours then you will need to stand it up for 24 hours before switching it on.
Laying your refrigerator on its side is dangerous and can break it as oil in the refrigerator will move around into the coolant tube which will damage it. Not all moving vans are big enough to move a refrigerator correctly so we can understand why refrigerators are put onto their sides.
Moving bulky items such as your fridge can be difficult anyway without having to worry about transporting them vertically.
If you don’t have the ability to do this yourself our best advice would be to hire a professional mover to do this for you. Moving bulky items can cause injury and in general, can be difficult to deal with. The price of a moving company can be affordable if you shop around and hiring one can take a lot of stress off you when it comes to moving day.
When the compressor oil leaks into the coolant it will block the system and break it. Firstly you don’t want that to happen but another problem with rushing to turn your fridge on is that you will void the warranty by doing so.
It’s highly unlikely that an insurance company could tell you that a fridge was turned on too soon when moving but an expert would be able to tell very quickly that there is oil in the coolant tubes. This would then void your warranty and would leave you out of pocket requiring a replacement refrigerator.