No matter what setting I turn it to it starts to frostup. I bought a new one and put next to the old one and the new one works great and fills the container up in about 4 hours or so and the old one has an inch of ice on it. What can I do short of junking it to get it to work right? Thanks for your suggestions.
Clean the vents first. Poor airflow can cause freezing up. If that doens't fix it if it is more than a few years old it is probably not worth fixing. Unfortunately the new Sears models made in Mexico are so cheap and high quality that you might as well not fix old ones. I had to make that decision 2 years ago and the new Kenmore was a bargain thanks to cheap Mexican labor. What a world we live in.
fills the
As noted start by cleaning and as noted, most other fixes are not worth the cost.
Note: I fought for several years with one. The manufacturer kept telling me I could not use it in a cool damp area (where else do you use a dehumidifier?). They also kept having recalls for a safety issue. Finally they called to ask me why I had not responded to their last recall and I explained I was not using it because of the frost problem. They said the last recall might also fix that as they were replacing the humidistat with a redesigned one. Well it worked!
Moral of the story, send in your product registration and buy a unit that says it is designed for basement use.
Note: the reason fixes are not normally worth trying is it indicates poor design or low Freon and the cost to fix is more than buying new.
Though probably not the approved method, I found that modifying my dehumidifier (cheap model without defrost) so that the fan ran all the time helped greatly. If the stat is adjusted so that it goes on and off, then it works well.
I also considered adding a 1 hour timer I've got to it to remove power to the compressor for 5 minutes an hour, and an ice sensor. But, unfortunately it's now showing signs of poor cooling (ice forms on the first 1/8th of the cooling coils), and the rest arn't very cool, and it removes a percent or so of the water it did, so I'm unlikely to bother.
Is it clear "ice" or white snow-like "frost"? Is it uniform over the *whole* evaporator (cooling) coil, or just part of it?
You can read about conditions which can cause total *frosting* of the evaporator at the following link:
Your new one might have a built-in "de-ice" control which will cycle the compressor off periodically to avoid a complete frost-up condition.
If it is working as it is designed (no air flow problem, etc.), you could try adding a de-ice thermostat to it so that the compressor will cycle off once frosting of the evaporator coil happens. You can see one such control at the following link:
- Appliance411.com
Check for air flow through the unit. Second thought, might be low on freon. Third thought, put it on a lamp timer and only run it a couple hours a day.
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