You own the upkeep on a refrigerator, and most of it happens at the bottom front, the back, or the top of the cabinet. This walk-through covers the two checks that keep the cooling side working over the years: the condenser coil and the door gasket.
Find the coil before you need it
The condenser coil is the set of thin metal fins that gives off heat from the sealed refrigerant system. On many models it sits behind a kick plate at the bottom front. On others it sits on the back or behind a panel at the top. The owner's manual shows where. Find it now, while nothing is wrong, and write the location in your owner's file beside the install year.
The cleaning pass
Switch off the unit at its outlet or breaker before you open any panel. Remove the kick plate or rear grille. Look at the fins in good light. Dust, pet hair, and kitchen grease collect on the fins where air is meant to pass, and a dirty coil makes the compressor work harder to move the same heat.
Use a soft brush attachment on a vacuum, or a coil brush made for the job. Work from the inside of the unit outward, so debris leaves the cabinet rather than settling deeper. Go slowly along the fin edges. Bent fins can often be combed straight with a fin tool, but if the bending is widespread, leave it and ask a technician to look. Do not use a wire brush or a sharp tool on the coil tubing.
Check the floor under the cabinet as well. A refrigerator with a frost-free freezer sends defrost water to a drain that can clog. When it does, water can appear on the floor or the kick plate. Note where the water sits and whether it came back after you cleaned up, because that detail helps a technician.
The door gasket
Close the door on a sheet of paper so that the sheet sticks out past the door edge. Then pull the paper gently. If it slides free with no drag anywhere along the seal, the gasket is not holding at that spot. Repeat the test at the top corners and along the hinge side, since those are the places where gaskets most often lose their grip.
A gasket is usually a replaceable part. Find the part number on the gasket or on the model label. Compare the cost of the part against the cost of a service visit, and ask the technician what the swap involves before you commit to either route.
When to call someone
Hire the job if the coil is bent over a wide area, if the defrost drain needs clearing from inside the cabinet, or if the unit is built in and you cannot reach the coil safely. When a technician visits, ask what they found on the coil, whether the paper test failed at any spot, and whether the evaporator fan runs when the compressor runs. Ask them to write those findings on the service slip.
Planning the unit's age
Write the install year on your owner's file page. Then compare your unit against the ranking on the appliances page linked below to see where it sits in its typical service life. Age is a planning input. A unit further along in its life earns a closer look at the coil and gasket each season, and a gasket replacement on an older unit is a decision to weigh against the years still ahead, not a sign of trouble.
What to keep on file
Keep the model number, the install year, the coil location, the last time you cleaned the coil, and the gasket part number. Keep the notes from any technician visit with them. The next visit then starts from a known point.
Compare your unit against the appliances ranked by typical service life page when you set the planning year.