Dodged a bullet today

[Silvar Beitel]

You have all probably at least once in your lives experienced that sinking feeling you get when you open the refrigerator door one day and the stuff inside doesn't seem like it's as cold as it should be.

Well, that day was today for me. Kenmore (LG) French door over drawer freezer, build date 2008.

With the interior temperature displays that are blinking "ERR."

Crap! Crap crap crap! And cycling the power didn't fix it.

Off I go to the intarwebs to hunt up a service manual and some troubleshooting tips while Mrs. B. scrounges around in old Consumer Reports and the web sites of local appliance fixers and sellers.

Lo and behold, I find some guy on Youtube who says, "If you hear the compressor running but no fan noises, something is wrong with the evaporator fan." And another who says, "If your evaporator fan isn't working, here's how to diagnose and fix what's wrong. And by the way, it might just be stuck from ice build-up."

Hmmmm. A couple of times recently, we've managed to not close the doors all the way and not discover it until hours later. And it has been humid as hell here for the past month. Hmmmm.

So I pull the freezer drawers out and look in and sure enough there's a great big ice monster stuck to the back and growing into the vents that carry cold air up to the refrigerator section. And the evaporator fan is right behind those vents.

So, get heat gun, melt the ice monster without melting any plastic panels, pulling and chipping some of it off, let the heat gun flood the compartment from a distance for a while, and voila! Back in business! Didn't lose a thing!

WHEW!

--
Silvar Beitel

[dsi1]

The even simpler fix is to unplug the refrigerator for a day and let the ice melt on its own. If it happens again, you probably need to replace your defroster heater. It's an easy enough job - if you like dicking around with appliances. It sounds like you do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPJM0TCaQDg

[itsjoan...@webtv.net]

On Friday, August 28, 2020 at 5:09:06 PM UTC-5, dsi1 wrote:
>
> The even simpler fix is to unplug the refrigerator for a day and let the ice melt on its own. If it happens again, you probably need to replace your defroster heater. It's an easy enough job - if you like dicking around with appliances. It sounds like you do.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPJM0TCaQDg
>

I pretty much had the same problem last year with my 25-year-old Whirlpool.
I didn't have the replacement part nor did I have the skill or want that
skill to take parts off my refrigerator to replace it. $240 replacement
part and repair took care of the problem that I most likely would have
screwed up.

[dsi1]

You're probably happier with a new refrigerator than an old refrigerator. Finding happiness for a grand or so sounds like a bargain to me.

[Silvar Beitel]

On Friday, August 28, 2020 at 6:09:06 PM UTC-4, dsi1 wrote:
> On Friday, August 28, 2020 at 9:32:42 AM UTC-10, Silvar Beitel wrote:
> > You have all probably at least once in your lives experienced that sinking feeling you get when you open the refrigerator door one day and the stuff inside doesn't seem like it's as cold as it should be.
> >
> > Well, that day was today for me. Kenmore (LG) French door over drawer freezer, build date 2008.
> >
> > With the interior temperature displays that are blinking "ERR."
> >
> > Crap! Crap crap crap! And cycling the power didn't fix it.
> >
> > Off I go to the intarwebs to hunt up a service manual and some troubleshooting tips while Mrs. B. scrounges around in old Consumer Reports and the web sites of local appliance fixers and sellers.
> >
> > Lo and behold, I find some guy on Youtube who says, "If you hear the compressor running but no fan noises, something is wrong with the evaporator fan." And another who says, "If your evaporator fan isn't working, here's how to diagnose and fix what's wrong. And by the way, it might just be stuck from ice build-up."
> >
> > Hmmmm. A couple of times recently, we've managed to not close the doors all the way and not discover it until hours later. And it has been humid as hell here for the past month. Hmmmm.
> >
> > So I pull the freezer drawers out and look in and sure enough there's a great big ice monster stuck to the back and growing into the vents that carry cold air up to the refrigerator section. And the evaporator fan is right behind those vents.
> >
> > So, get heat gun, melt the ice monster without melting any plastic panels, pulling and chipping some of it off, let the heat gun flood the compartment from a distance for a while, and voila! Back in business! Didn't lose a thing!
> >
> > WHEW!
> >
> > --
> > Silvar Beitel
>
> The even simpler fix is to unplug the refrigerator for a day and let the ice melt on its own.

Along with all the food in it? I don't think so.

> If it happens again, you probably need to replace your defroster heater. It's an easy enough job - if you like dicking around with appliances. It sounds like you do.

Issue/solution was already described, but I will keep your advice in mind.

Eventually there will be a "next time." :-)

--
Silvar Beitel

[Bruce]

On Fri, 28 Aug 2020 17:08:45 -0700 (PDT), Silvar Beitel
<silver...@charter.net> wrote:

>On Friday, August 28, 2020 at 6:09:06 PM UTC-4, dsi1 wrote:
>> On Friday, August 28, 2020 at 9:32:42 AM UTC-10, Silvar Beitel wrote:
>> > You have all probably at least once in your lives experienced that sinking feeling you get when you open the refrigerator door one day and the stuff inside doesn't seem like it's as cold as it should be.
>> >
>> > Well, that day was today for me. Kenmore (LG) French door over drawer freezer, build date 2008.
>> >
>> > With the interior temperature displays that are blinking "ERR."
>> >
>> > Crap! Crap crap crap! And cycling the power didn't fix it.
>> >
>> > Off I go to the intarwebs to hunt up a service manual and some troubleshooting tips while Mrs. B. scrounges around in old Consumer Reports and the web sites of local appliance fixers and sellers.
>> >
>> > Lo and behold, I find some guy on Youtube who says, "If you hear the compressor running but no fan noises, something is wrong with the evaporator fan." And another who says, "If your evaporator fan isn't working, here's how to diagnose and fix what's wrong. And by the way, it might just be stuck from ice build-up."
>> >
>> > Hmmmm. A couple of times recently, we've managed to not close the doors all the way and not discover it until hours later. And it has been humid as hell here for the past month. Hmmmm.
>> >
>> > So I pull the freezer drawers out and look in and sure enough there's a great big ice monster stuck to the back and growing into the vents that carry cold air up to the refrigerator section. And the evaporator fan is right behind those vents.
>> >
>> > So, get heat gun, melt the ice monster without melting any plastic panels, pulling and chipping some of it off, let the heat gun flood the compartment from a distance for a while, and voila! Back in business! Didn't lose a thing!
>> >
>> > WHEW!
>> >
>> > --
>> > Silvar Beitel
>>
>> The even simpler fix is to unplug the refrigerator for a day and let the ice melt on its own.
>
>Along with all the food in it? I don't think so.

Hawaiians are poor, humble people. They have no food in their fridges.

[dsi1]

I have unplugged refrigerators with a full load of food. The melting ice helps keep the inside cool. I don't have any problem with that but other people might have. If you don't feel comfortable with that, it's certainly your call, not mine.

[itsjoan...@webtv.net]

On Friday, August 28, 2020 at 6:54:10 PM UTC-5, dsi1 wrote:
>
> You're probably happier with a new refrigerator than an old refrigerator. Finding happiness for a grand or so sounds like a bargain to me.
>

I'm still happy with my 25-year-old 25 c.f. refrigerator although I did have
my eye on a French door model in case the part was not available for mine.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Simpler if you have a place to put the food and keep it cold. Being a
bit resourceful with a heat gun saved a lot of work moving stuff or a
lot of money from waste.

He also knows the cause and how to prevent it.

[dsi1]

Keeping food cold with ice is not a new or radical idea. OTOH, Americans are quite fearful of food spoilage so using a refrigerator as an ice box will probably not be acceptable for most people. I've done it before but don't blame me if you die a horrible death.

In cases like this you don't really know the cause. It could be that you left the door open or it could be that your defrost heater is burnt out. If it is the defrost heater, it'll happen again. If it does happen again, it's easy enough to unplug the refrigerator to defrost the coils manually - just like the olden days.

[dsi1]

We had a Samsung French door refrigerator with an ice and water dispenser. That thing was so troublesome that it was a real pleasure to dump it and get a conventional design model - as long as it has an ice maker, I'm happy. I won't be getting one with an ice dispenser - not while I still have a breath of life within me.

[Julie Bove]

"Silvar Beitel" <silver...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:96cd23a7-85b9-47f4...@googlegroups.com...

That's good!

[Sqwertz]

Once this starts happening, it often starts to occur more
frequently.

-sw

[Bryan Simmons]

Ours quit giving ice, so we bought a countertop ice maker. Stuff isn't made to be repaired anymore. We had two clothes washers quit working in the past 11 years, and the second one was a Samsung. Today, we're biting the bullet and buying a Speed Queen which will probably outlive both of us.

--Bryan

[dsi1]

We had a Samsung washer too. Well, it was an LG actually - same thing. That didn't last very long. Our dreams of an all Korean appliance home crashed and burned. Live and learn.

[Cindy Hamilton]

Excellent choice. My first Speed Queen lasted 17 years and could have lasted longer but my husband
didn't want to repair it any more. My second Speed Queen (a top-loader with analog controls but
probably a circuit board behind the panel) is perhaps 10 years old (my how time flies).

Cindy Hamilton

[Taxed and Spent]

You don't need a heat gun. A regular fan works even better - lower
temperature, but vastly higher volume. And you set it up and walk away
for a short time.

Put the food in a cooler, or cardboard boxes covered with a blanket. It
will stay frozen for the short amount of time needed to defrost.

[Silvar Beitel]

That's how I used to defrost my previous standalone freezer. Pull everything out, put it in coolers, set trays on all the shelves to catch ice and water, set up a big standing fan blowing on the interior, walk away for a couple of hours, dump the trays, mop everything up and reload. Twice a year. Was also the opportunity to find those things that had disappeared into its depths and needed to be tossed.

It ran for 40 years needing nothing in the way of repairs except a fan replacement once (I jerry-rigged a old computer muffin fan into it and that ran for the last 10 years of its life).

And of course it wasn't exactly energy efficient. That and having to go through the defrosting dance regularly is what got me to buy a new (energy-efficient, frost-free) one. (Well, OK, some ugly surface rust was growing on it too.)

But the heat gun was definitely the right tool for this job. By directing the heat at the top of the ice block, I was able to get melt water to run down behind the block, which let me pry much of it off with a putty knife. Then I just propped up the heat gun blowing (from a distance so as not to melt the plastic) on the air channel where the evaporator fan lives and walked away for 15 minutes. The whole job took less than an hour.

I *like* this refrigerator, so I want to keep it going, never mind the cost and inconvenience of getting a new one. It puts out prodigious amounts of ice, which appeals to me as a Standard American Stereotype. :-)

--
Silvar Beitel

[Sheldon Martin]

When our kitchen fridge went on the fritz it was nice to have a fridge
in the basement until the appliance repair person arrived two days
later. We also bought a block of dry ice for our large ice chest, two
days later when the fridge was repaired everything was still frozen
solid. I remembered from when long ago I drove a Bungalow Bar ice
cream truck that kept the ice cream frozen for days with blocks of dry
ice in the attic... the trick to make the dry ice last longer was to
wrap it in several layers of newspaper.

[Bryan Simmons]

No more shitty appliances. Our dishwasher is an 11 year old Whirlpool that was one of their lower-mid priced ones. It has a few broken off tines, so it is probably near its end, and the replacement will be this. https://www.mieleusa.com/e/fully-integrated-full-size-dishwasher-g-4977-scvi-sf-am-stainless-steel-10778830-p Not a lot of fancy bells and whistles. Just durability.

--Bryan

[Gary]

I had that happen either 1.5 or 2.5 years ago. Fridge was 47F and
freezer was 18F. Way too warm for either. and in back of the
freezer was an ice wall.

Problem ended up being a tiny little electronic disk (about the
size of a quarter with two wires coming out of it) that regulated
the defrost cycle. Worked fine since then but I do notice that
sometimes when I close my fridge door, the air pressure will pop
open the top freezer door a bit. Not good. I always double check
the freezer door now.

Mine is a cheap, no frills Whirlpool fridge/freezer. Still
working fine after at least 25 years, except for that one freezer
issue.

[dsi1]

Our washer is supposed to be a "commercial quality" washer. Well that's what it says on the nameplate. Beat me if that's true. I could probably tell but the guy at Sears wouldn't let me take apart their washers to check for heavier duty mechanicals.

[Bryan Simmons]

********************************
It's weird. Your name is Winter but you're the warmest person I've ever met."
"Cold name, warm heart."
"It's a beautiful name. Like freshly fallen snow."
"Mom named me Winter because I was born just after midnight on the first day of Winter. My middle name was just because she liked the sound of Winter Sue. She said it sounded all Southern, like Bobbi Jo or something. When she told me that, it made me think about Bobbi Jo, and why you could give a girl two boy names and have that be a girl name. I thought that maybe the two boynesses canceled each other out."
Ann was now laughing as hard as she'd cried. "Like multiplying negative numbers."
"Exactly. Eventually, though, I concluded that Bobbi Jo probably stood for Roberta Josephine, and figured that I'd dodged a serious bullet," said Winter, as she noddingly added her laughter to Ann's.
********************************
>
> --
> Silvar Beitel

--Bryan