--- title: "Refrigerators" description: "Kenmore refrigerators: the appliance the badge is best known for, and the one where knowing who built it changes the repair most." url: "https://kenmoremiami.support/appliances/refrigerator/" date_modified: "2026-09-01" Appliance type: "Refrigerators" --- # Kenmore refrigerators ### Three different refrigerators wearing one badge Kenmore does not build refrigerators. It commissions them, and over the years three makers have supplied most of what is in South Florida kitchens: Whirlpool, Frigidaire and LG. The number before the period on the rating plate tells you which — 106 for Whirlpool, 253 for Frigidaire, 795 for LG. Two cabinets that look identical from the front can have different evaporator layouts, different defrost strategies, different control boards and entirely different parts catalogs. ### Why we ask for the model number first Not to be thorough for its own sake. On this make the model number is the diagnosis sequence. It tells us which service documentation applies, whether there is a code table to read, and whether the part on the van fits. A technician who arrives without it is guessing at three appliances at once. ### The climate reaches each of these three by a different route Humidity is the common enemy and it does not go after the same part on all of them. On a Whirlpool-built 106 it works on the defrost circuit, because that circuit exists to clear what every damp door opening leaves behind and here it never gets a quiet week. On an LG-built 795 the cold is moved by a fan and read by sensors, so the same moisture surfaces as air that has stopped circulating and readings that have stopped agreeing. On a Frigidaire-built 253 it arrives at the door first, and a seal that has taken a permanent set feeds everything downstream of it. Salt and dust silt all three condensers at the same rate, with nothing on the front panel to say so. ### What we can tell you before we come out Give us the full model number, whatever is on the display, and how long it has been doing it. With those three we can usually name the likely part and the band it falls in. The exact cost is confirmed after the on-site diagnostic, and agreed with you before anything is opened. French door · side-by-side · top and bottom freezer Refrigerator repair 106 is Whirlpool, 253 is Frigidaire, 795 is LG Ice, water and the defrost circuit are most of the call volume The parts catalog is the builder's, not the badge's Three different refrigerators wearing one badge Kenmore does not build refrigerators. It commissions them, and over the years three makers have supplied most of what is in South Florida kitchens: Whirlpool, Frigidaire and LG. The number before the period on the rating plate tells you which — 106 for Whirlpool, 253 for Frigidaire, 795 for LG. Two cabinets that look identical from the front can have different evaporator layouts, different defrost strategies, different control boards and entirely different parts catalogs. Why we ask for the model number first Not to be thorough for its own sake. On this make the model number is the diagnosis sequence. It tells us which service documentation applies, whether there is a code table to read, and whether the part on the van fits. A technician who arrives without it is guessing at three appliances at once. The climate reaches each of these three by a different route Humidity is the common enemy and it does not go after the same part on all of them. On a Whirlpool-built 106 it works on the defrost circuit, because that circuit exists to clear what every damp door opening leaves behind and here it never gets a quiet week. On an LG-built 795 the cold is moved by a fan and read by sensors, so the same moisture surfaces as air that has stopped circulating and readings that have stopped agreeing. On a Frigidaire-built 253 it arrives at the door first, and a seal that has taken a permanent set feeds everything downstream of it. Salt and dust silt all three condensers at the same rate, with nothing on the front panel to say so. What we can tell you before we come out Give us the full model number, whatever is on the display, and how long it has been doing it. With those three we can usually name the likely part and the band it falls in. The exact cost is confirmed after the on-site diagnostic, and agreed with you before anything is opened. ### It is running but the food is warm. Where does that usually go? The order of checks depends on who built it, which is why we ask for the model number before anything else. On a Whirlpool-built 106 the defrost circuit is where a slow warm-up most often ends — the freezer stays passable while the fresh food side drifts over days. On an LG-built 795 the same complaint has a different first suspect, because that cabinet moves its cold with a fan and reports a sensor problem on the display rather than silently. Either way, start with the setting and the airflow: a cabinet packed to the back wall misses temperature while the compressor runs perfectly, and that costs nothing to rule out. ### The ice maker stopped. Is that a whole new ice maker? Usually not, and again it depends on the builder. Ice production is a function of freezer temperature, so an ice maker that slowed down is very often a freezer that drifted up — cheaper to fix and a different job. After that it is the water supply: a filter past its interval, or a saddle valve that has silted closed, which is a local classic on this water. The module itself gets changed when the module is the thing that quit, and describing what it does on the phone usually tells us whether it is. ### Does my refrigerator show error codes? Some do and some do not, and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on who built yours. LG-built cabinets are the most talkative — LG publishes a consumer code table and the display uses it. Whirlpool-built and Frigidaire-built cabinets publish far less for the fresh-food user, and much of what they show is a service mode rather than a message. We publish the tables the builders publish and nothing else. If you find a page listing dozens of Kenmore refrigerator codes, somebody has made a list up. ### The water dispenser has slowed to a trickle. Change the filter before you book anything. Six months is the interval most of these carry, and it assumes gentler water than we have; a cartridge here can be finished well ahead of the date on it. If a fresh filter does not bring the flow back, the supply line and then the inlet valve are next, and those are a visit rather than a trip to the store. --- **[Read full article: Refrigerators](https://kenmoremiami.support/appliances/refrigerator/)**