Technical > Home Improvement > Problem with Refridgerator

Problem with Refridgerator

The only easy possibility is that the thermostat has developed a leak. Check to see if there is 120v present at terminal J5 of the control board. It should be present if the compartment is too warm. If it isn't the thermostat is bad. If it is present, you need a technician familiar with that model to troubleshoot it.

If you can't easily get to the control board, you can check at the thermostat terminals. Both should be at 120v to call for cooling.

reply to Hazy Arc
My guess based on what you have described is that it is the evaporator fan motor. When the refrigerator is running, do you feel a blast of cold air coming from the vent (vent is probably towards the top of the fridge) into the refrigerator side? Or is it more like a trickle of cold air with no force behind it? If it's just a trickle, it's the evaporator fan motor. A new one is about $60 and you can replace it yourself.

EDIT: Here is a schematic and replacement part list.

»www.searspartsdirect.com/partsdi···/0165000

reply to Hazy Arc
You say the freezer works great but check and see if there is any icing going on inside in the back of the freezer. If there is you may need a new defrost heater. That is one cause for the fridge to get warmer. If the fridge gets dangerously warm you need to do a quick defrost by unplugging it and letting all the ice melt. Make sure all the ice is melted. Then plug it back in and the fridge will again get cool. This will buy you some time until you can get the part and install it.

reply to Hazy Arc
Put a Kill a watt meter on the plug and tell us what the watts are when it comes on and then stabilizes.

reply to Hazy Arc
the cooling for the fridge comes from the freezer portion, so if the freezer is working fine, then the cold air is not going from the freezer to the fridge part.

reply to Hazy Arc

reply to mix

reply to Hazy Arc
Make sure the vent that allows cold air into the refrigerator portion isn't blocked. My in-laws had the same problem as you, and I found they had a pack of Corona blocking the vent.

reply to Hazy Arc
The evaporator fan should be running whenever the compressor is running.

OK, I was confusing the evap fan with the fan in the back of the fridge that blows across the coils at the back/bottom of fridge. I will take a look at evap fan and see if it's running.

reply to Hazy Arc

reply to Hazy Arc
After doing some research, I've read that the fridge should have a vent which allows air from freezer into the fridge, which it does. However, I've also read that there should be a return vent somewhere else that allows airflow from fridge into freezer. I only see the one input vent. Is this normal?

reply to Hazy Arc
That's not a little frost - that's a lot. Your defrost system may not be working as intended.

Do you think the ice could have accumulated since I had door open for about 15 minutes while taking apart the shelving and back panel?

Glad it is working, you need to check for ice build up or other obstruction along the air passage from the freezer to the fridge. The tube(s) that the air blown by the evaporator fans flows along.

If it really seems to be clear, and the fan really seems to be running all the time as intended (not just since you took it apart and gave it a spin or something which will temporarily make it seem like its working), then maybe our definitions of trickle and blast of air are different.

So, if you get to here, this would probably put you at replacing the temperature control. Because there are two of them, a test you could try is to put your freezer at the very warmest setting, and put the fridge one at the very coldest setting. See both control the same cooling components, and the whole system will run and actually cool both sides of the fridge if either calls for cooling. If the fridge doesn't kick on and cycle pretty consistently to try to maintain refrigerator temp., I guess you know what your problem is.

reply to Hazy Arc
That is way too much ice/frost.

Is freezer running at 0?

That looks pretty typical for how much would be built up if I didn't shut the fridge down while opening up this area and exposing it to moist air. If the defroster wasn't working, I'd expect to see a giant block of ice. That said, I'd probably unplug the fridge, and let that ice melt, maybe even help it along with a heat gun or hair dryer before reassembling and closing it back up.

Hair dryer maybe, no heat gun.