ister Zhang, who runs a fruit shop, was in a panic as soon as she opened the door last Monday morning — the cold storage unit in the back kitchen suddenly stopped cooling. There were more than 20 boxes of strawberries and blueberries stored inside, and if they were left at room temperature for a long time, they would definitely rot. She originally wanted to call a maintenance worker directly, but the worker said he couldn’t come until the afternoon, which made her anxious and frantic. Later, reminded by a fellow shopkeeper, she tried 3 self-check steps, and unexpectedly, she found the problem and even saved a sum of maintenance fees.

         The first step is to check the power supply and switches. Sister Zhang first looked at the unit’s plug and found that an employee had accidentally bumped into it while cleaning the night before, leaving the plug half-loose. The poor contact caused a power outage. She reinserted the plug tightly, pressed the reset button on the leakage protector, and the unit’s indicator light turned on instantly. Later, the maintenance worker said that such "false faults" account for 30% of the problems where the unit stops cooling, and checking the power supply first can often solve the problem quickly.

         The second step is to verify the temperature setting. Previously, in order to keep the fruits fresh longer, Sister Zhang had set the temperature to 5℃. But that morning, she found the thermostat showed 20℃ — it turned out an employee had accidentally touched the temperature control button and set the temperature too high. Following the instruction manual, she reset the temperature to 5℃. After waiting for 1 hour, she used a thermometer to measure the temperature inside the cold storage, and it had dropped to 8℃, with the cooling function gradually recovering.

         The third step is to clean the condenser. Sister Zhang found that the condenser on the side of the unit was covered with dust, lint, and even a few fallen leaves. These debris blocked the heat dissipation port, leading to a drop in cooling efficiency. She took a soft-bristled brush, gently brushed off the dust on the surface, and used the cold air setting of a hair dryer to blow away the debris in the gaps. Less than half an hour after cleaning, the temperature inside the cold storage dropped to 6℃, and normal cooling was fully restored.

When the maintenance worker arrived in the afternoon, the unit was already operating normally. The worker said with a smile: "Most of the time, when a cold storage unit stops cooling, it’s not a major problem. Doing these 3 self-checks first can save time and avoid wasting money." Now, Sister Zhang has pasted these 3 steps next to the cold storage, and she no longer fears encountering similar emergencies.