Finally figured out why my marketplace fridge was losing its cool

I had almost the exact same thing happen with a used Whirlpool Gold I bought for the garage a few summers back. In my case, I found a couple of old gym socks shoved into the drain pan area. People will do anything to hide a bad defrost heater or a clogged drain line just long enought to get the cash and disappear. It’s incredibly frustrating to deal with someone else’s lazy "fix" when you’re just trying to keep your groceries cold. Before you let a tech charge you a fortune, check the defrost thermostat and the heating element yourself with a cheap multimeter. On my unit, the heater loop had actualy snapped, and the thermostat was bulging—classic signs of failure. Replacing those parts cost me about forty bucks on a parts website and took maybe twenty minutes once the ice was gone. If the towels were there, the previous owner was definately fighting a leak or a frozen drain tube. Make sure you clear the drain hole with some hot water and a bit of weed trimmer line while you've got it open, or you'll be back in the same spot in two weeks.

I actually had a different experience when I found some old rags stuffed in the bottom of a Kenmore Elite I bought off a neighbor. While it feels like a scam, I eventually realized the guy might have just been trying to stop a leak from ruining his hardwood floors. My drain tube was completely gunked up with some kind of slime, and the defrost cycle was overflowing the internal tray every few hours.

Instead of calling a pro immediately, I spent about twenty bucks on a basic multimeter and a new heating element from a local supply shop. It took me a full Saturday, but after clearing the line with a bit of hot water and vinegar, the fridge has been holding a steady 37 degrees for six months now. Before you write off that six hundred dollars, check the continuity on the defrost heater yourself. It is usually just a simple plug-and-play part tucked right behind those coils, and it might save you from a massive repair bill.

Seen that trick back in the 70s with the old belt-drive units, though back then folks used newspapers to soak up the mess. If you've got the hairdryer out, be careful not to warp the liner; I usually prefer a steamer or just a bucket of hot water to let nature take its course. Since you’re already in there, take a look at the defrost timer. Most of these modern rigs have control boards, but if it’s an older mechanical style, you can manually click it into defrost with a screwdriver to see if the heater even glows. If that timer’s sticking, all the towels in the world won’t save your ice cream.

That’s why I stopped buying used without a backup plan. If that technician gives you bad news, don't even bother fixing a franken-fridge. I’d just grab a GE GTS18HGNRBB; they are basicly bulletproof and the parts are everywhere if somethig actually does go wrong.

While you’re getting it running, grab a Govee WiFi Thermometer. I put one in my freezer and it saved me a fortune when my seal started leaking last year. It sends an alert to your phone the second things get too warm, so you aren't stuck finding soggy towels and ruined steak after the fact.

That's a total gut punch. People are real pieces of work sometimes. If you've allready cleared the ice and the towels, keep an eye on the evaporator fan too. Sometimes when the coils turn into a glacier like that, the ice acutally hits the fan blades and burns out the motor. If it's not spinning or sounds like a lawnmower once you plug it back in, you'll need to swap that out along with whatever defrost part failed. Hope it's just a cheap sensor and not a fried board.

Update: So I tried the hot water trick someone mentioned instead of the hairdryer beacuse I was worried about warping the plastic. It worked, but now I'm looking at the drain tube. Like that guy with the Kenmore mentioned, mine is totally gunked up too. Does anyone know if the towels were likely just for the leak, or does a clogged drain ussually kill the whole defrost cycle like this?