Beer fridge emergency

[Al, Cambridge, UK]

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 (=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.

[malcolm.white]

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.

[Andy Burns]

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

[Andy Dingley]

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.

[Jonathan Pearson]

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

[Andrew Gabriel]

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.

[Mike]

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 (£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.

[Ian Stirling]

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.

[raden]

In winter ?

[Al, Cambridge, UK]

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

[Andy Dingley]

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 ?

[Ian Middleton]

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.