Transporting the Refrigerator Horizontally: What You Should Consider

How to transport a refrigerator lying down

Before transporting your refrigerator lying flat, clean the device thoroughly and prepare it for transport. For this, the refrigerator should be empty and defrosted.

• Clear all food from the refrigerator. Then pull the plug out of the socket and let the freezer thaw.
  Once the refrigerator has been defrosted, you should clean the device thoroughly.
• To do this, remove all shelves and drawers. Wipe the interior walls with a damp cloth. Use an all-purpose cleaner with cleaning water as needed to eliminate odor.
• Pack all of the refrigerator’s accessories well in paper, terry towels, or blankets so that nothing breaks. Put everything in a box and transport it separately from the fridge.
• Then close all the doors and tape them off with masking tape so that the doors do not open during transport.
• Note that the refrigerator should always be transported on its side, not on its back. Because on the back there are important cooling elements and hoses that could be damaged during transport on the back.

Leave the refrigerator standing before switching it on

After transport, you should never switch your refrigerator on again immediately.

• If you transport your refrigerator upright, you can switch it on again immediately. However, if the refrigerator was transported lying down, the refrigerator must be left standing for some time.
• Because it can happen that the oil contained in the compressor gets into the coolant during transport, if you switched on your refrigerator immediately, optimal cooling would no longer be guaranteed.
• Therefore, the refrigerator must be left for some time so that the oil can run back into the compressor.
• The duration differs depending on the refrigerator model. As a rule, the device should be left overnight. Only then can you use it again.