RowdyFan42 Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I have an older Kenmore freezer-on-top refrigerator (at least 15 years old) that has worked well until recently. First, water started pooling at the bottom of the fridge. Internet research revealed that the drain from the freezer had frozen over; we let it thaw out completely once and that cleared it up, but only for a couple days. It was only a minor annoyance, so we dealt with it. About a month ago I installed a defrost drain strap as recommended in the linked article, but it doesn't seem to have had an effect. I'm thinking there's a clog of some sort deeper in the drain hose where I can't get at it. Again, a minor annoyance but it can be dealt with. Fast forward to last week. Just in time for the hotter-than-f*ck portion of summer, everything goes to hell. The refrigerator portion stopped getting any sort of cool air at all, and the freezer got a little warmer but was still relatively functional. It was still cold enough to make and maintain ice and keep everything frozen, but the ice cream was getting soft. Luckily we also have a chest freezer and we just happened to have a mini-fridge lying around (hooray for having a college student home on summer break!), so we were able to save most of the important stuff. Anyway, I was convinced the fridge was kaput, so I started pricing out new ones, but I still wanted to take a stab at fixing this one first. (At this point you're probably asking: Why not just call a repairman? Well, I'd rather not unless I absolutely have to. Yes, I'm cheap and I don't want to get scammed. Sue me.) Saturday we were going to be out all day, so I unplugged it and let it thaw out. I plugged it back in late Saturday night having been satisfied that it was completely thawed. Ever since it's been sort of meh; the freezer is still cold-but-not-cold-enough, and the fridge has gone from completely useless to similarly cold-but-not-cold-enough. Specifically, the fridge hovers around 50°F and the freezer hovers around 10°F; both are at least 10-15 degrees warmer than they ought to be. Today I cleaned out the condenser coils -- they had accumulated quite a bit of dust, as I don't think they've been cleaned since we've had the thing -- but it doesn't seem to have had any effect so far. The condenser fan appears to be working properly. I have observed, both before the Saturday thaw-out and since, that the back wall of the freezer looks frosty. I haven't yet removed the back wall to see how the evaporator and everything else looks; that's probably going to be my next step. I'm expecting it to look like a damn snow cone back there. We haven't had the prior leakage problem yet, but given the frost, I'm wondering if maybe the heater hasn't kicked in yet. Either that or the heater is working and the drainage issue has been cleared up, I'm not sure. The fridge doesn't seem to be running all the time, which is a good thing, though I'm not sure if it's starting and stopping on a normal cycle. Sorry about the novel, but I didn't want to leave out anything that could be important. I've gone through this FAQ (especially this page) and taken some of the steps that seemed relevant; others I haven't tried yet because they seemed a bit drastic and I wanted to get some opinions before proceeding. I also found a site that sells all sorts of parts for my fridge, so as long as the parts I need are relatively cheap and easy enough to install that I'd have to be a real idiot to screw it up, I don't mind swapping out a few parts. So, anyone got any ideas, suggestions, etc.? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nj96 Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Unfortunately, sometimes you've got to call a repair guy... They've got specialized tools and knowledge and can probably diagnose the individual part that failed quickly instead of narrowing it down and throwing parts at it... That said, it may be worth replacing... It's probably nowhere near as efficient as today's models so switching would probably save you money on the electric bill as well as keep your food colder than it is now... If you decide to try and fix it and need parts, i've always used www.repairclinic.com for what I can't find at HD or Lowes. Good Luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RowdyFan42 Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 (edited) Unfortunately, sometimes you've got to call a repair guy... They've got specialized tools and knowledge and can probably diagnose the individual part that failed quickly instead of narrowing it down and throwing parts at it... True. I'm hoping to eliminate the simple stuff first. I'm the kind of guy who would prefer to at least take a stab at figuring it out on my own before calling in the professionals. I've got it narrowed down to either something catastrophic where it's game over or just a failure of the defrost system, and it looks like the parts for that are pretty cheap and the installation is reasonably straightforward. This morning the freezer was down to 2°, so I'm encouraged by that, but the fridge was still at 50. That said, it may be worth replacing... It's probably nowhere near as efficient as today's models so switching would probably save you money on the electric bill as well as keep your food colder than it is now... Good point. At this juncture I figure I'll need to replace it if I can't fix it, so what's the worst that can happen? It's beyond my abilities or I make it worse and have to junk it? I've already accepted the possibility that it'll come to that, so no big loss there. If you decide to try and fix it and need parts, i've always used www.repairclinic.com for what I can't find at HD or Lowes. Good Luck! Thanks. That's the site where I found the whole list of parts. I guess I can use that as a shopping guide for going out locally and then, like you said, order directly from them if all else fails. Edited July 20, 2011 by RowdyFan42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerrydevil Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I am impressed with people who can fix or build things. Beyond IKEA furniture, I am useless in that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Diablo Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I am impressed with people who can fix or build things. Beyond IKEA furniture, I am useless in that way. +1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RowdyFan42 Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 Yeah, I'm fairly useless myself most of the time. If it wasn't for the Internet, I probably would have given up right away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sammyk Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Dude, get yourself a nice new fridge. Fix your current one to acceptable levels and put it in the garage to make it a beer fridge! Problem solved! /thread Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Masked Fan Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Dude, get yourself a nice new fridge. Fix your current one to acceptable levels and put it in the garage to make it a beer fridge! Problem solved! I'm Masked Fan and I approve this message. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sammyk Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Dooo eeeeeeeeet! http://www.gizmag.com/go/1132/picture/166/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sammyk Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Dammit, we need an update on the fridge drama! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dadds3424 Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Is your refrigerator running? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RowdyFan42 Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 Is your refrigerator running? We already did that joke, do try to keep up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RowdyFan42 Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 Dammit, we need an update on the fridge drama! Nothing much to report, I've been too busy to tinker with it. The fridge itself is status quo; still running, still somewhat cold but not as cold as it should be. Temperatures haven't changed all that much. The more I think about it and research it, it's likely a problem with the defrost system, but those parts appear to be cheap enough and easily replaced (as far as I can tell), so I'm going shopping over the weekend to see if I can find the parts locally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insanity_gallops Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 Just my 2 cents here... but re: efficiency, it makes a big difference in energy bills. In my previous apartment, the fridge had to have been from the early 1990s, and that bastard ran all the time; it just couldn't keep itself cool. In my new apartment, the fridge is from 2006. Our new apartment is larger, with an extra bedroom, but the energy bills are almost identical. I attribute a lot of that to the change in appliances, specifically the fridge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RowdyFan42 Posted July 31, 2011 Author Share Posted July 31, 2011 Just my 2 cents here... but re: efficiency, it makes a big difference in energy bills. In my previous apartment, the fridge had to have been from the early 1990s, and that bastard ran all the time; it just couldn't keep itself cool. In my new apartment, the fridge is from 2006. Our new apartment is larger, with an extra bedroom, but the energy bills are almost identical. I attribute a lot of that to the change in appliances, specifically the fridge. Ours, though, never really had problems until recently. There may have been a couple times over the years like that heat wave from a week or two ago where it struggled to keep up, but for the most part it's been a good soldier, no complaints. I was able to confirm that it was a failure of the defrost system. For those of you who don't know how a freezer/refrigerator combo works, it all happens in the freezer compartment. The cold air for the fridge actually comes from the freezer as a byproduct of the frost and cold air that gets created for the freezer. The freon flows through this thing that looks like an old-style radiator with aluminum foil stuck all over it, called an evaporator. Frost builds up and a fan blows air over it for the freezer and refrigerator. Every few hours, a heating coil kicks in and melts all the frost off the evaporator. If there's a problem with the defroster, ice can build up and block the drain for the melted ice and eventually the vents that send air to the fridge. And that (tl;dr) is what happened to me. The ice got so bad that the fridge wasn't getting any air. Anyway, I let it thaw out again yesterday and ordered the parts to fix it. I had taken the back wall out of the freezer so I could check the progress, plus I wanted to see how the frost was built up so I could make sure it was just a defrost failure and not a freon leak. Today I put everything back together, plugged it in, and that's when it went to hell. I thought it was kicking in like normal, but then "hummmmmmm-CLICK". That's the sound of the compressor sh!tting the bed. Without getting into details, for someone of my skill level, it's basically game over. Time to go refrigerator shopping! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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