10-year-old fridge has finally become too unreliable for food, so a new
fridge/freezer has been bought and works perfectly.
But the brave old fridge begs to soldier on keeping its master and
mistress's essential beer supply at optimum temperature, with almost
Paul Burrelesque devotion.
The motor runs, the heat exchanger on the back gets almost too hot to
touch and the unradiator thing inside gets icy cold. But just when the
beer is cooling nicely, the motor cuts out for long periods. Even with
the knob on maximum (coldest) the temperature tends to stay at an
un-optimum 6 or 8 degrees (although it occasionally goes a bit mad and
whacks down to -1.5).
Since it sounded to me like the thermostat, I bought another one from
www.ezee-fix.co.uk (=A315, delivered next morning) and fitted it to get
exactly the same behaviour.
If this is some sort of thermal trip on the motor itself, it seems
strange that it should be able to cut out for 10 minutes or more - that
seems too long a period for a cut-out to be able to work.
Any ideas?
Hotpoint 8112 larder fridge, test equipment is 1 (currently full) case
of Staropramen.
Thanks in advance.
Al.

It depends on how much heat is retained by the motor. If it gets v.hot
and the thermal trip operates it could easily take 10 minutes to cool
down, our vaccuum cleaner did the same until I serviced it. However I
don't know enough about the workings of fridges (apart from the general
principle) to be able to tell you how to service it.

--
Malc

Al, Cambridge, UK wrote:

test equipment is 1 (currently full) case of Staropramen.

I suggest you need to drink a few to see if reducing the load helps, if
not try replacing them with bottles of Schneider Weisse

On 17 Dec 2004 06:41:12 -0800, "Al, Cambridge, UK"
wrote:

The motor runs, the heat exchanger on the back gets almost too hot to
touch and the unradiator thing inside gets icy cold.

Lost pressure. It still "works", but is now so inefficient (hence the
extra heat) that the motor is flogging its little guts out trying to
keep up. It's probably cycling on just the motor overheat limit.

The economics of fridges are such that running an inefficient one is a
bad idea, compared to repair or even replacement.

Al, Cambridge, UK wrote:
10-year-old fridge has finally become too unreliable for food, so a
new fridge/freezer has been bought and works perfectly.
But the brave old fridge begs to soldier on keeping its master and
mistress's essential beer supply at optimum temperature, with almost
Paul Burrelesque devotion.
The motor runs, the heat exchanger on the back gets almost too hot to
touch and the unradiator thing inside gets icy cold. But just when the
beer is cooling nicely, the motor cuts out for long periods. Even with
the knob on maximum (coldest) the temperature tends to stay at an
un-optimum 6 or 8 degrees (although it occasionally goes a bit mad and
whacks down to -1.5).
Since it sounded to me like the thermostat, I bought another one from
www.ezee-fix.co.uk (£15, delivered next morning) and fitted it to get
exactly the same behaviour.
If this is some sort of thermal trip on the motor itself, it seems
strange that it should be able to cut out for 10 minutes or more -
that seems too long a period for a cut-out to be able to work.
Any ideas?
Hotpoint 8112 larder fridge, test equipment is 1 (currently full) case
of Staropramen.
Thanks in advance.
Al.

Is the fridge in your in the garage / shed where the temperature gets lower
that the inside of the fridge (i.e. lower than 5 degrees) - as in these
situations the fridge can get confused in that it thinks that the
temperature is cold enough?

Jon

In article ,
Andy Dingley writes:
On 17 Dec 2004 06:41:12 -0800, "Al, Cambridge, UK"
wrote:

The motor runs, the heat exchanger on the back gets almost too hot to
touch and the unradiator thing inside gets icy cold.

Lost pressure. It still "works", but is now so inefficient (hence the
extra heat) that the motor is flogging its little guts out trying to
keep up. It's probably cycling on just the motor overheat limit.

If you have a power meter, measure the power consumption.
I had one which was behaving this way. Power meter showed
the compressor was pulling about 2kW instead of 120W,
although apparently working fine otherwise, between periods
of the cutout operating. Cause was probably a shorted turn
in the motor winding, which was not really repairable as
the (freezer in this case) was too old to consider a new
compressor.

The economics of fridges are such that running an inefficient one is a
bad idea, compared to repair or even replacement.

--
Andrew Gabriel

"Al, Cambridge, UK" wrote in message
oups.com...
10-year-old fridge has finally become too unreliable for food, so a new
fridge/freezer has been bought and works perfectly.
But the brave old fridge begs to soldier on keeping its master and
mistress's essential beer supply at optimum temperature, with almost
Paul Burrelesque devotion.
The motor runs, the heat exchanger on the back gets almost too hot to
touch and the unradiator thing inside gets icy cold. But just when the
beer is cooling nicely, the motor cuts out for long periods. Even with
the knob on maximum (coldest) the temperature tends to stay at an
un-optimum 6 or 8 degrees (although it occasionally goes a bit mad and
whacks down to -1.5).
Since it sounded to me like the thermostat, I bought another one from
www.ezee-fix.co.uk (£15, delivered next morning) and fitted it to get
exactly the same behaviour.
If this is some sort of thermal trip on the motor itself, it seems
strange that it should be able to cut out for 10 minutes or more - that
seems too long a period for a cut-out to be able to work.
Any ideas?
Hotpoint 8112 larder fridge, test equipment is 1 (currently full) case
of Staropramen.
__________________________________________________ ____

Oh I've got one of them. There is a little vent for water to escape near the
bottom at the back and it is full of crap.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Andy Dingley writes:
On 17 Dec 2004 06:41:12 -0800, "Al, Cambridge, UK"
wrote:

The motor runs, the heat exchanger on the back gets almost too hot to
touch and the unradiator thing inside gets icy cold.

Lost pressure. It still "works", but is now so inefficient (hence the
extra heat) that the motor is flogging its little guts out trying to
keep up. It's probably cycling on just the motor overheat limit.

If you have a power meter, measure the power consumption.
I had one which was behaving this way. Power meter showed
the compressor was pulling about 2kW instead of 120W,
although apparently working fine otherwise, between periods
of the cutout operating. Cause was probably a shorted turn

Peak power is high with even a normally operating fridge, as the
stall current of the compressor, when it's starting up, or stalled due to
being unable to start (due to high pressure (due to it being just turned
off a moment ago)) is very high.

In message , Andy
Burns writes
Al, Cambridge, UK wrote:

test equipment is 1 (currently full) case of Staropramen.

I suggest you need to drink a few to see if reducing the load helps, if
not try replacing them with bottles of Schneider Weisse

In winter ?

--
geoff

Andy Dingley wrote:
On 17 Dec 2004 06:41:12 -0800, "Al, Cambridge, UK"
wrote:

The motor runs, the heat exchanger on the back gets almost too hot
to
touch and the unradiator thing inside gets icy cold.

Lost pressure. It still "works", but is now so inefficient (hence the
extra heat) that the motor is flogging its little guts out trying to
keep up. It's probably cycling on just the motor overheat limit.
:

I wondered about lost gas, but surely the heat-exchanger pipes being
hot shows that the compressor has found enough of something to compress
efficiently?

Another alternative could be some blockage in the pipework, but I don't
hear the motor obviously stalling. Could this be a case where the
fridge *should* be turned on it's head and not allowed to settle before
installation?

Further info: the fridge lives in a pantry just off the kitchen, so at
about house temperature.

Thanks to everyone replying so far, my next plan is to replace the
replacement thermostat with a switch so I know exactly what's happening
at that end. But more likely I'll open the door, frown at the
thermometer, sigh, see the beer....
Al

On 20 Dec 2004 05:29:11 -0800, "Al, Cambridge, UK"
wrote:

I wondered about lost gas, but surely the heat-exchanger pipes being
hot shows that the compressor has found enough of something to compress
efficiently?

It shows that it's compressing "something", but not that it's doing it
efficiently.

Another thought is that you've just moved this fridge - is there
enough airflow around the hot bit to allow it to air cool ?

--
Smert' spamionam

"Al, Cambridge, UK" wrote in message
oups.com...

Andy Dingley wrote:
On 17 Dec 2004 06:41:12 -0800, "Al, Cambridge, UK"
wrote:

The motor runs, the heat exchanger on the back gets almost too hot
to
touch and the unradiator thing inside gets icy cold.

Lost pressure. It still "works", but is now so inefficient (hence the
extra heat) that the motor is flogging its little guts out trying to
keep up. It's probably cycling on just the motor overheat limit.
:


Try getting it re-gassed. I paid £65 to get our 4 year old frost free fridge
regassed. Engineer said it would probably fail again (in year or two time if
it had a leak) though it could have been that we had not let the fridge
settle for many hours (6 I think it said in the book) before turning it on
after moving it. Anyway still going cooling my beer fine 18months later.