Home repair - refrigerator

While traveling, we had had a couple of "oops" in the refrigerator (items that had turned over and leaked), so we cleaned it on Monday. In the process, we found that the support for the bottom shelf was about to crack through.

A piece of glass lays on top of this plastic support...

... zooming in, I've marked with arrows places where it was cracked, almost all the way through, in the middle of the back of the shelf support.

Carl had used this product for gluing plastic in the past, but it was all dried up (we've come to the conclusion that these are single-use packages -- they never seem to be able to be used more than once!).

The shelf was also supposed to have a cross piece that the produce drawers slid on (shown where it should be positioned for the picture), but it had broken too.

The design is poor (it is all plastic on the back of that shelf support and also the cross piece), but it does not help that things are bouncing up and down on the shelf as we drive down the roads -- in other words, it may have held up okay in normal household use, just not so great in a motorhome.

While we were out on Tuesday, Carl got some superglue and on Tuesday evening, he glued the parts together. They needed to cure for 24 hours before we wanted to put any stress on the repairs, so we continued on the project on Wednesday afternoon.

This is the area where the shelf support will go...

There it is in place -- you can see that there is a place where shelves could attach in to a metal shelf holder in the middle back, but this shelf has no connection to that -- not sure why not. And, the back part of the shelf holder is all plastic -- the front has a metal strip, but the back is all plastic. We decided that it would be wise to try to provide some additional support in the back. The shelf under this one has a metal piece across the back, so it is holding up well, and we thought we could put "legs" from the plastic down to the support below.

We considered various materials (cutting up a cutting board that we had gotten for use in this kind of way, or a wooden dowel rod), but decided to go with a piece of sharkbite PVC pipe.

Cutting the PVC pipe

Deciding where the pipe "legs" should go (we put it in, and put the shelf support into the refrigerator to make sure that it would fit and do the job).

Carl decided to use hot glue for this as the legs will be mostly be held in place by the weight downward on the shelf.

Putting the leg into place

Shelf support in the refrigerator with its new legs -- it seems to be working well!

We put the glass shelf on top and then put the produce drawers back in -- they have not been sliding in and out very well for a long time due to the middle piece being broken -- now they slide like a dream! I hope the glue and plastic will hold!

We had another piece that we had removed from the refrigerator because it had totally broken in half -- it is a cover over the snack/cheese tray, and we haven't missed it that much, but, Carl decided to try fixing it as well.

He had glued it Tuesday night, but it is all plastic with no additional support -- he is pointing to where we figured it needed some additional strengthening (you may be able to see the crack just to the right of his finger).

Some hot glue...

... and another piece of PVC -- it seems stronger now. Whether it will end up breaking again or not is to be seen, but it is holding together for now!

It is great to get some items cleaned and fixed so they work better for our daily lives!