In article ,
Terry Pinnell wrote:
I have a Hotpoint 8571, combination fridge freezer. I
accidentally left the freezer door open a fraction yesterday. I
corrected after no more than 2 hours and moved switch from
'Economy' to 'Fast freeze' to compensate. But squishy ice cream
today, maybe 20 hours later, pointed to some problem, which now
investigating and would appreciate any advice please.
[snip]
More important, what is likely cause? A year or two ago I had a
similar problem and engineer ended up having to remove back panel
where we discovered large ice deposits. Took both of us with hair
dryers a good hour to melt it. Should I suspect same this time?
If so, what is *underlying* cause? Any other possibilities?

We had this happen a couple of years ago, exactly as you
described, even to the extent of having to remove the
inner lining and use hair driers. A Hotpoint service
engineer later explained that this was a common problem
with 'frost free' fridge-freezers.

The freezer compartment is kept cold by a fan circulating
air, from the cold coils behind the inner lining and through
the compartment. If the air circulation is blocked or stopped
then two things start to happen, the cold coils ice up, and
the compartment loses its supply of cold air. The icing-up
itself then reduces the air flow, which causes more icing-up,
and so on. Our fridge-freezer had a solid block of ice
behind the inner lining, from top to bottom.

The most common trigger is blocking the air flow by simply
having too much stuff in the freezer compartment. Other
triggers are fan failure or, in your case, leaving the door
slightly open.

--
Tony Williams. Change "nospam" to "ledelec" to email.