How to defrost the fridge?

[hill]

I know it is a rather embarassing question to ask at the age of 30+, but how do you defrost your fridge? How often do they need to be defrosted?

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hairdryer

may i suggest you do not try and speed things up by using a steamer or containers with hot water in them etc.

instead, you could try and wet the ice with cool water from a soaked cloth, it'll still melt but at a slower rate, however you won't have any surprises.

put plenty of towles at the base of the freezer to catch any spills.

I would speed it up with hot water etc but use plenty of towels (and don't Lakeland & Kleeneze do those mats which absorb a hell of large quantity of water that you can use to make flooding minimal?!) - if it's very frozen up it can take bloomin' ages if not given a helping hand.

If you don't have a cool bag, individually wrapping everything up well in newspaper and storing it in a (switched off & cool!) oven works well as an insulator - put the frozen stuff in the middle and the chilled stuff around it and DON'T open the oven door again until you're ready to put all the stuff back in the clean/back down to temperature again fridge/freezer.

Lakeland & Kleeneze also do a spray thing which helps melt the ice quicker. However, after emptying an entire can in my fridge freezer, I still found that I had to help along with bowls of hot water/hairdryer... but then I had left it a bit long to tackle . When the penguins started getting mad that their ice flows were floating away I did start feeling a bit slovenly...

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Thanks for all your suggestions.
I think I'll wait til the week-end before the defrosting. How I will get my inquizitive 11 months old away from the pool of water is another matter...