Inglis RBF175RA fridge, brand name logo, right side lamp shade. Photo by Don Tai
Over twenty years ago I moved into my house, replete with an avocado coloured fridge, an Inglis model RBF175RA, and a bunch of other old appliances. Through the years most have been replaced, but this fridge lives on. Getting older, the fridge has had trouble controlling its temperature, but today I repaired it with a new cold control thermostat replacement.
The house came with a bunch of old appliances, most of which are not used on a daily basis. The Maytag washer and Viking dryer have had major parts changes. The electric stove was replaced with a gas model, after the chassis started to rust out. The furnace was replaced with new, as was the garage door and opener. We’ve gone through 4 microwaves. There are few remaining after 20+ years, and especially so for daily use appliances.
The avocado green fridge, an Inglis RBF175RA, is a simple upright fridge with the freezer on top and fridge section on the bottom. The fridge has lost its front name plate, which probably fell off long before I saw our house. The lower fridge door handle had broken but I still have it. I have not had the need to take the door apart and repair the handle. We have a magnet to help the door seal a bit tighter. In fact I struggled to find out which brand and model it was. Only when you stick your head deep within the fridge that you can see the “Inglis” name imprinted on the right side of the lamp shade. There is also a small and dirty name plate at the bottom front of the fridge that I only found this year. Talk about being underappreciated. We vacuum the bottom air entry pretty regularly, but really, there’s not much more maintenance to do. This Inglis fridge should be made in Canada.
The fridge gave us a fright one night about 5 years ago when it started leaking water. How can a fridge leak so much water? In fact it was not the fridge, but the hose that fed it’s long discarded ice maker, a feature that I had never seen working and failed to figure it out. This copper hose routed down to our crawlspace, where it connected directly to the cold water pipe. It had been on for over 10 years, unused, and I did not even realize it. The saddle valve was quickly repaired. I could not blame the fridge for the mess.
The Inglis brand name is still around, under the Whirlpool family. They retain the same logo as my fridge. Inglis started making fridges in 1989, so my fridge might be 30 years old. At this point the company was majority owned and an arm of Whirlpool.
In 1987, Whirlpool Corporation increased its ownership in Inglis Limited to 71.6 percent. Soon after several new products were introduced including microwave ovens and a new line of dishwashers and energy-efficient refrigerators.
My big avocado fridge still runs strongly and keeps cold. The compressor is strong and pretty silent. The problem was that the cold control thermostat would not maintain a constant temperature. I would have to reset it daily, or it would lose cold. The thermostat was a GE brand. There are various numbers on the label, including 547573 FSP 3ART5VK23 COLD CONTROL, Made in USA, numbers on the side (3967, 3294). After 30 years of service I don’t owe it anything. it is clear from sight and feel that this GE part was designed and built to last. Kudos to GE for robust manufacturing.
Inglis RBF175RA fridge, original cold controller thermostat from GE, wiring. Photo by Don Tai
Inglis RBF175RA fridge, original cold controller thermostat from GE, wiring. Photo by Don Tai
Inglis RBF175RA fridge, original cold controller thermostat from GE, wiring. Photo by Don Tai
Inglis RBF175RA fridge, original cold controller thermostat from GE, wiring. Photo by Don Tai
Unfortunately I was not careful and used too much force when pulling off the plastic thermostat cover, breaking two top plastic tabs. I’ll need to figure out how to make this look better. The thermostat has a ground and two wires, in red and orange. Essentially the thermostat is a switch that closes and opens depending on temperature.
The generic replacement is a Ranco brand VB11 “Replacement Thermostat beverage cooler”, $46CAD. Interestingly the instructions that come with it do not include this model. I could have bought the OEM recommended replacement original number 8201506 for $136CAD, special order. Thanks Jeff, from Amre Supply in Scarborough, for knowing your stuff.
The VB11 plate cover was too long for my plate cover, so I had to bend the plate’s two metal tabs. I could not use the original Inglis temperature knob. Otherwise the install was pretty easy: There are only 3 wires to plug in, and they are all standard flat quick disconnect connectors. The replacement, even going slowly, takes only 5 minutes. The difficult part was moving the fridge away from the wall so I could disconnect the electricity.
Inglis RBF175RA fridge, model name plate, bottom front of fridge, dirty. Photo by Don Tai
Inglis RBF175RA fridge, model name plate, bottom front of fridge, crud scraped off. Photo by Don Tai
In the end the fridge section stabilized at +5C and the freezer section at -8C. This is pretty good for an old fridge.
