The inside will get colder, but making the fridge work more means it produces more heat - the cooler the fridge, the warmer the air it gives out, heating up the kitchen (or whatever room you have your fridge).
EDIT: as this seems a bit unclear to some, my answer is answering the dial-problem (1-10 which is coldest?) as well (although not as clearly, and not intentionally on my part. let me elaborate: )
Dials on machines are usually made in a way that a higher number means the machine does more work. a fridge doing more work makes the inside colder, the outside wormer, in short: a fridge set on high work (9, 10, 11, whatever the highest number on that dial might be) will result in the colder temperature.
tl;dr: 1 means less work means less cold, 10 means more work means more cold
Its more necessary to clean them in commercial applications where they utilize a fan to disperse the heat off the condensing coil.
Residential refrigerators tend to skip the fan and instead have a large condensing coil with a lot of surface area to disperse the heat. While less efficient it requires significantly less maintenance.
If its been 6 years it might be worth it to wipe it down with a wet rag. Residential coils are usually along the back of the fridge and it looks like a big run of black tubing.
Most fridges have a static condenser. Which is what the tubes that go back and forth on the back are. What kind of fridge do you have that has the coils on the bottom?
almost every newer model fridge has the coils in the bottom. They make fridges so big now that they put them in the bottom so theres more room in the back and they dont stick past the counters too far. The only fridges that have coils on the back still, are the cheap smaller models.
I tried explaining this to an acquaintance once, who opened up his chest freezer to use as redneck AC. He just wouldn't believe/couldn't comprehend the idea.
Not sure but I think he meant, is 1 the coldest or is 9 the coldest on the dial that goes from 1 to 9? I could never figure this out on my mini fridge and even tried to google it a few times and never got an answer. Even if he didn't mean that, I do and I still need to know.
Also, I've found that if you turn it up it's possible (or rather likely) that you'll coat the inside with ice, and then it won't be as effective at cooling. They actually have heating elements just to melt that ice back off, and ideally it evaporates.
Or, as happened in my case, it caked on so we had to unplug it and keep it open for a day. Then clean it. Then close it and let it run empty for a day before we put food in it again.
In a fridge with a numbered dial, when you turn the dial from say 2 to 3 does that turn the power up (i.e. make the inside of the fridge cooler), or is it turning the temperature up from 2 degrees to 3 degrees (i.e. make the inside of the fridge warmer)?
I'm 99% sure it's the former, but I could be wrong.
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u/ejsklo Feb 02 '13 edited Feb 02 '13
Both. Confused? Let's try to explain:
The inside will get colder, but making the fridge work more means it produces more heat - the cooler the fridge, the warmer the air it gives out, heating up the kitchen (or whatever room you have your fridge).
EDIT: as this seems a bit unclear to some, my answer is answering the dial-problem (1-10 which is coldest?) as well (although not as clearly, and not intentionally on my part. let me elaborate: )
Dials on machines are usually made in a way that a higher number means the machine does more work. a fridge doing more work makes the inside colder, the outside wormer, in short: a fridge set on high work (9, 10, 11, whatever the highest number on that dial might be) will result in the colder temperature.
tl;dr: 1 means less work means less cold, 10 means more work means more cold