turn it off for about 5 hours then turn it back on.
open the doors also.
and put your food in an ice chest to keep it cool
Can't. You have to be certified.
The cold air is created in the freezer department and goes into the refrigerator via vents. Sometimes items will block off the vents where the cold air enters the freezer and/or the refrigerator.
The Freon cooling coil (condenser) is by the floor and has air pulled across them with air coming off the floor. If you have pets that shed hair, then the condenser will collect that which in turn traps more dust and dander so it'll look like a dirty matted mess. My Kenmore side by side got that way which reduced cooling and made the unit run more frequently. I cleared off the crud using a shop vac with a rubber hose taped to the end to reach back and all the nooks & crannies. Some stores sell a special nozzle for vacuuming refrigerator condensers.
Later on my Kenmore stopped cooling and found the freezer coils frozen up. Thawed that out and it got cold again only to refreeze. The defrost heater for the unit was a wire that was attached to the coils. It checked out being OK with a volt-ohm meter along with it's limit switch and fan, which ran real slow when it was iced up. I checked the wire insulation and saw it had fine cracks. The cracks allowed the wire to loose current to the ice so couldn't get hot enough to thaw the ice. The current thru the wire also fed the fan so the low current made it run slow. Some defrost heaters are encased in glass tubing to prevent that.
I replaced the defrost heater wire and it went back to operating like normal.
Call a repairman. This category is for wheeled vehicles. Try posting in Home & Garden > Maintenance & Repairs for more answers.
It probably does not require freon, those have sealed compressors and all metal lines, they don't really leak. It's a heat pump, so it needs to shed all the heat it removes from inside the fridge, if the condenser is covered in dust, that can insulate it and the fridge wont get as cold. So I'd try cleaning it first, also if your house is warmer now than it was before, it wont be as cold so you will have to turn the temp down.
I have a Whirlpool brand refrigerator. For the past few days, it hasn't been cooling our items quite as cool like it normally does. None of us have adjusted the temp. or anything. The ref is a used one and is about 8-9 years old. How do we add freon?
