I have a side by side, about 5 yrs old. The defrost cycle isn't working, and it freezes up after about 5 days. Kitchen Aid told me it was a closed system, and only a qualified KA repairman can fix it. I've heard there is a "defrost clock." Does anyone know what could be the problem, and if I can fix it myself?
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If you've heard me rant on this before, please ignore. KA authorized service stinks. Maybe some of their service companies are good, but I have the one's I've dealt with, are not. My KA service guy walked in, complained that I had shut down the fridge (no one at their place told me to keep it running) and said that, "well, it's been 5 years since you replaced the compressor/condenser, so it would be $1500 to do it." That's it, no diagnostic, no listening to me, just replace everything. As it turns out the fridge now works fine. When the KA service guy turned it on, I noticed that there was now airflow to the fridge. Before, there was none .... zero. I told him that. I also told him that when I shut it down after it not working properly, there was lots of water in the bottom of the freezer. Still, just replace it all. After he left, the fridge and freezer worked perfectly. I still don't trust it. Shortly after that we were out of town for 5 weeks, so I put the fridge stuff in a dorm fridge and the freezer stuff in the garage freezer.
But, in looking into what would cause a freeze up, there seems to be only 2 things, bad defrosting or low freon. I guessed the former. In my KA built-in, there are 3 components in the defrost area, a heater, a timer and a thermostat. The timer turns on the heater and turn off the compressor at regular defrost intervals. The thermostat will turn off the heater as soon as the coil gets above 32 degrees (or there about). The guess for mine is that the mechanical timer hung up or the thermostat stuck, preventing the heater from defrosting the evaporator coil. These components are located behind the rear freezer panel on my KA. After removing a ton of screws, the panel comes out exposing the coil, heater, thermostat and timer.
nohorns wrote:
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