I have a GE side by side frig. The freezer is cool but not keeping items frozen.The frig is a tepid temperature. We used a compressor to blow out the coils. Seemed to help a small bit but still unsatisfactory. Tested the freezer by putting a bowl of water in it overnight but it did not freeze. Any suggestions before I call a repairman? Thanks.
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The coils in the back of the freezer are iced up. Empty the freezer, remove the back panel and melt the ice with a hair dryer. You've got a humidistat or something going bad. Thawing will buy you a couple of weeks 'til it's repaired.
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Thanks!
Ours had that happen , it was stuffed too full, where the defroster fan was blocked.
I'll give it a try. Thanks.
Also - There is usually a tube that is at the inside rear that fits to bottom of a collection cup for draining water down to the catch basin under the whole unit.
That tube can get frozen up when too much stuff is jammed up against it. That can cause a number of things, such as water that spills out in other locations or freeze up of the coils.
The purpose of the collection cup and drain tube is to carry away water produced by the auto-defrost system.
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According to the appliance doctor, that is the number one reason for service calls for fridges. One day, I caught the tail end of that discussion. We were having trouble with our fridge freezer and I went home and viola! Fixed!
I worked as an appliance repairman years ago. The number one service call for refrig's was not defrosting, number one part to fail was the defrost timer and the number one reason it failed was a surge from a lightning storm. Defrost heater was number two part to fail. Good luck.
Thanks!
Small world. Thursday afternoon I had the same thing on my side by side. It's happened maybe once a year. Same problem as others have suggested, same fix. I spotted it early on this time. I pulled stuff off from around the metal cover that keeps food from the coils, noticed a thin film of ice forming there, my early warning system.
Yes, shut down, pull the food to a cooler, uncover the coils, and use the hair dryer. Whole procedure take about an hour.
Since it works just fine at other times, especially during the winter when he air is dryer, I have been assuming that the auto defrost design is too close to just making it get defrosted and drip-drained before the compressor kicks back on. Then the cycle starts with some ice left on the coils and at the end of each cycle there is that much more. Eventually the defrost heater and time interval can't keep up with things and ultimately the better part of the whole coil is encased in ice.
What tips it over the critical point? It could be unusual sources of moisture in the fresh section (uncovered soup bowl, etc), perhaps auto icemaker (ours has one; I left it off this time). Another thing that would do it is something on a shelf that keeps the door from closing tightly for a time. If the outside air is humid, then the coils are trying to defrost the whole kitchen.
Defrost manually, then keep an eye on it and check the coil for buildup in a couple of weeks. A repeat soon after could well mean a repair is needed, as suggested (heater, timer).
I would highly recommend that you test the defrost heater while you have the evaporator coil cover off. It is pretty simple if you have an Ohm meter and It might save you the time to have to pull every thing apart at a later date and the possibility of losing a lot of food.
The defrost timer is not easy to test for the DIY'er
Testing the defrost heater with an ohm meter (I have one) - am I looking for some reading vs. open (failed completely)?
Thanks. Working on it this afternoon.
So, you going to tell us how you made out yesterday afternoon? Then half of us can claim "told ya," and the rest can say "well, it could have been...."
Found the interior back wall of freezer iced up. Seemed to be coming from behind the back wall into the freezer. Took all food out of both sides. Unpluggged it yesterday. Put towels around the edges to soak up water. Ck'd that tube in rear bottom of back of frig to see if plugged up. Was not. Just plugged frig back in a few hrs ago. Put bowl of water in freezer side. I am rather unmechanical so a few suggestions were above my pay grade. If this does not solve it my husband said he'd try some of the other suggestions when he gets back from business trip. I LOVE this Breaktime website! Such knowledgeable people who are willing to advise. I'll report back tomorrow to say if the water froze.
You could forget the big bowl of water, put in a small toaster oven pan with an eighth inch of water in it, and post the result in a half hour or so. Either that or just rip your outside thermometer off the window and put it in there for 15 minutes, see if the temp is down near zero.You know, I was thinking about yours, mine, and the suggestion someone made about stuff piled up against that back panel. In my case it's aluminum. When the defrost heater clicks on every 8 or 12 hours, it needs to heat up the coils and the fins surrounding them to melt the thin collection of frost on them. If a chuck of beef or something is pressed up against that panel and making contact with the edges of the fins on the coils, I have to wonder if the beef (or whatever) will soak up enough heat near the point of contact to limit the defrost action. After all, that little heater is designed (you would think) to defrost just the coils, not the whole freezer contents. Just wondering.
I too am thinking that the origin of my problem is alot of bags of pecan pcs that I was storing in the freezer. Bags were piled up and pushed towards the very back. Don't have thermometer so cannot use that to test. Wanted to use bigger amt of water to make sure freezer is REALLY cold before I put all that food back in it. I'm a wee bit parnoid now. I had alot of food in it when it stopped working. Salvaged just about all but the ice creams.
The icecream, too could be "salvaged." Yummy. Call the neighborhood kids, win brownie points so they won't decorate your house at Halloween. Too late, I guess.
The children would ahave had to bring a spoon to eat THIS ice cream!
Probably too late for you but sometimes the defrost timer motor craps out and it gets hung up in the defrost mode. If it is cooling at all that would not be it though. Have had to replace the thermostat too.
Thanks for taking the time to respond.