On Wed, 6 Jun 2018 02:28:01 +0630, Oumati Asami
wrote:

On 05/06/18 23:29, wrote:
On Tue, 5 Jun 2018 06:58:45 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Tuesday, June 5, 2018 at 9:33:49 AM UTC-4, Oumati Asami wrote:
The defrost timer of my side-by-side refrigerator is not working. I have
ordered one but it'll take a week to arrive. In the meantime, I use a
screw driver to manually switch between the cooling and heating cycles.

I notice that if the refrigerator stays on the cooling cycle, the
temperature of the refrigerator side (as opposed to the freezer side)
seems to rise. In other words, the refrigerator needs to go through the
heating cycle for the refrigerator side to get cool.

I wonder why it is so.

The refrigerator side is typically cooled by moving some air past the
coils on the freezer side and into the refrigerator side. So, if you
put the heater on at the coils in the freezer, the air temp will rise.
And you're looking at the air temp in the fridge, which is going to
react quickly. The temp of the contents, eg a quart of milk, isn't
going to change that much during the brief defrost cycle.

It may just be that those coils are iced up and without the defrost
cycle running enough, so no air is getting to the fridge side.
It is a common problem with side by sides. The only way to know for
sure is to take that cover off the back of the freezer and look. You
may find the port at the top partially or totally iced over.
When the fan in the freezer is running, you should feel a pretty good
breeze at the louvers in the top of the fridge. If it blows
significantly harder with the freezer door open, the port at the
bottom may be plugged up.

That sounds like it. I just wonder how big the opening is. It seems the
opening is blocked within 24 hours of compressor running.

Without the defrost cycle, humidity is not reduced and it will ice up
again pretty fast. Bad door seals will make that worse.