Fridge woes

[GenesisGuy70]

Something is wrong with my fridge. When I woke up this morning it was warm, ice cream completely melted, yogurt warm. I called the maintence folks for my apartment complex and by the time they came out it was working again. Now 6 hours later and it’s back to the same thing. I can hear the condenser running and the fan but the fan inside the freezer is not running. This is clearly the issue is it not?

 

[Vern_in_IL]

I bought a new Kenmore bottom freezer fridge, and the airflow fan was lazy, would not spin sometimes. The fan blows cold air from freezer into fridge compartment. Replaced under warranty.

The coils are in the freezer, and the fan maintains the fridge compartment temp, by blowing in cold air, the evap and compressor only keep the freezer section cold, the fan simply moves the cold air into the fridge section.

 

[GenesisGuy70]

This is a side-by-side GE fridge and it functions the same way. I just checked it again and the condenser and fan are running but the freezer fan is not. Ugh. Well if I can't get this fan to spool up I'm going to be out all of that food by morning. And I would assume that the condenser running with no heat exchange occurring is going to freeze up the coils inside the fridge.

Fantastic.

 

[Randy]

Could be several things. Low refrigerant would cause it to work until it freezes up and then stop working until it thaws repeating the process. Essentially it's freezing up until it stops the fan and then eventually thaws.

 

[stang5]

Same thing happened to our 8 month old Frigidaire. Woke up one morning everything in the freezer melted, refrigerator was warm, called Frigidaire and they sent a tech the next day and refrigerator was running fine. The tech said he sees this happen all the time and ended up changing the main board. Now it’s been running fine.

 

[JHZR2]

There are usually flaps and fans in a refrigerator. We had a GE side by side in the past, and there were known issues with the logic boards, which got complimentary replacements in some cases. This may be the issue here...

 

[das_peikko]

The fan is supposed to be on whenever the compressor is running.

 

[thooks]

All newer refrigerators suck.

We have learned that the French door models are the worst. Also most salespeople are saying 7-9 years is the most to expect out of one now.

The days of buying one, plugging it up and running for 30 years are over.

 

[krismoriah72]

Look underneath it. If it looks very dusty/dirty clean it. My 2 year old fridge did the same thing.. cleaned really well underneath and hasnt had an issue since.

 

[Donald]

check the coil area under the fridge, clean with vacuum and coil brush.

 

[GenesisGuy70]

Turns out the control panel that controls the fan inside the freezer and the freezer light is shot. So while it wasn't the fan itself, I was close! The coils were iced up horribly and it's a wonder it didn't burn up the compressor but I would assume it has controls that would shut it down when it overheats. Hopefully there's no lasting damage from sustained high heat and this will be the end of the problems for a while.

 

[mk378]

The controller should be running defrost cycles. The compressor and evaporator fan are stopped and an electric heater is turned on to melt the frost from the evaporator coil. A thermostat on the evaporator signals the controller that the defrost is complete when the temperature reaches about 60 F.

I think even on a modern fridge the need for a defrost is still assumed just from accumulated compressor run time since the last defrost.

 

[Vern_in_IL]

Quote:
The days of buying one, plugging it up and running for 30 years are over.


The 2nd refrigerator available after WW2 was sold to my uncle, spent half it's life in the house, and the rest in the welding shed. It died in 1996.

Just over 50 years.