Subject: Fridge freezer annoyance
From: "Craig Graham"
Date: 21/03/04 11:15 GMT Standard Time
Message-id:

We have a pretty cold kitchen, particularly as it's not got central heating
in it and we've put a curtain in the open doorway to the dining room, which
does have a radiator. The aim was to keep the dining room warm.

The fridge part of the fridge freezer is now freezing things on a regular
basis. I've replaced the thermostat, and we've put a fan heater in the
kitchen as an experiment to keep it reasonably warm 24/7. Neither seems to
have fixed the problem. I've tried turning the thermostat knob very slowly
and cannot hear it click- even when I turn it all the way to "off" and the
cabinet light goes out. I also cannot hear the compressor, though I can
faintly hear the sound of coolant. I can't reliably hear the fridge
switching on and off as I turn it on and off, so it seems there's some
anti-cycling thing in there that's complicating matters. Obviously it works
despite the silence because the thing is frozen!

I'm at the point of ditching it and looking for seperate replacement fridge
and freezer units that are stackable, so that in the future when we re-do
the kitchen, they can un-stack. I can't seem to find any. Do they exist? The
only way I've found so far is to get builtin units and get a kitchen unit
that can hold both of them, one above the other.

An alternative is to put a decent electronic temperature controller in there
with display so I can see it's working. This should fix it but will cost
around 60 quid for a cheap PID controller and power supply. And the hassle
of mounting it, either as simple as a plastic box inside the fridge or going
as far as cutting through the door to mount it properly in the panel. It
also doesn't fix the design flaw of having a single thermostat and cooling
system for both the fridge and the freezer parts so I may find that the
freezer is then not cold enough.

A third option is to get someone in to look at the fridge and fix it.
However it will take a couple of weeks to confirm whether or not the fix has
worked, and I don't like paying someone to do something when I can't tell
whether it's been done or not until a considerable time after payment!

Does anyone have any suggestions or comments?

I can't hear a click from the thermostat knob of mine either which I could on
the previous model. Some click some don't. Doesn't mean it isn't working ok
though but it would be far nicer to hear something.

What can happen is ice builds up on the temperature sensor which stops it
sensing properly so it stays on 24/7. Try defrosting it fully, getting all the
ice out from behind the freezing panel, setting the knob to its minimum setting
and then see what happens. Adjust it up in tiny stages if it works but stays
too warm. On mine you only need to have the knob a tiny bit too high and it
freezes solid but get the setting right and it's fine.

The freezer part won't be controlled by the fridge knob. It'll be preset to a
given temperature.

Heating the room won't make any difference - it'll just make the heat exchanger
work harder.


Dave Baker - Puma Race Engines (www.pumaracing.co.uk)
I'm not at all sure why women like men. We're argumentative, childish,
unsociable and extremely unappealing naked. I'm quite grateful they do though.