Hi The freezer door of our Bosch was left open last night, and over temperature the alarm sounded a few hours later. Now the unit can't maintain -18C when using its 'ECO' mode. Is that just a coincidence with the leaving the door open, or could that have broken something?
If its a frost free, a defrost cycle should sort it. Give it 24hrs to hopefully fix itself, if not defrost manually.
NT
It is. We've never done a manual defrost, just left it alone. So the defrost cycle is automatic? What does it do? Am I being stupid?
The auto defrost either has a heater wrapped around the cooling part inside the unit, so when the defrost is activated, it stops cooling and the heaters melt the ice quickly - or the freezer has a valve in the refrigeration plumbing that will reverse the process, so the inside is heated and the outside is cooled for a short time, melting the ice.
They don't always melt it all though, and you can get a build up gradually, that turning it off and letting it all melt is the only real solution.
I had to the this exact thing with my 5 year old frost free freezer a couple of days ago (first time I have had to do it) - luckily we have a spare chest freezer we just moved everything to and then turned the main one off overnight with the door open, stuffed with a few towels to absorb the water (which wasn't actually that much to my surprise)
Toby...
I expect as all the food has been warmed up, the freezer hasn't completed freezing it all the way through - I would put it on super freeze (usually takes it down to about -24) overnight, put it back on eco, and see if that solves it.
Toby...
Ffffs do a defrost cycle every 8-24 hrs. If its timed it probably wont clear it, if defrost end is determined by a thermostat it will.
NT
Even if it is by thermostat, then the stat can only sense where the probe is, there still may be buildup somewhere in the system.
Toby...
The place that ices up is the evaporator, which is a big metal heatsink. There wont be much temp gradient across that, and the defrost stat is designed to wait till its warm enough to ensure its clear.
Timed defrost cycles are designed to handle daily icing, and tend to quit too soon to clear an overnight open door.
NT
Thanks all for the suggestions. Super freeze has been on for a day and a bit, and it's still stuck at -18C. It just doesn't want to go any lower. A job for the weekend to give it a manual defrost I think.
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