[charlesbahn]

New refridgerators sometimes suck. We have a top of the line Whirlpool that was just over a year old, and out of warrenty when the same thing happened. Power surge and it died.

So figured I could fix it. Found a replacement controller board on line that was surprisingly cheap, bought it, installed it and plugged it in. Voila ! The light on the door now came on....but something was still wrong, the compressor wasn't starting.

Hmmmm..... turns out the compressor has a built in starter motor that also got fried. Sooo, buy a new compressor on line- how hard can it be to replace it?

Turns out very difficult. You have to cut the copper lines to the old compressor and put in the new compressor and braze the old copper lines to it. I suppose if you already know how to braze a pipe it might be easier, but the damn compressor is filled with oil which unfortunately keeps trying to catch on fire.

So after about 10 tries to braze the pipes with the wife standing at the ready with a fire extinguisher, only to find I had a persistant coolant leak after each try- somehow I got lucky and the system held the coolant charge. It wasn't pretty- there was brazing metal humped up over all the pipes and burn marks on the floor.

I'm pleased to report that three years later it's still working.

The short answer to your question is No. So I now have it plugged into a surge protector.

Hope that helps