Stopped working some weeks ago, found solid ice behind freezer side back wall, defrosted, and all was well....
...until yesterday, and now it's all iced up again.
I am thinking high probability that the self-defrosting mechanism is out to lunch and my conundrum is whether to get it repaired or replaced.
I'm thinking $900 for a new replacement, minimum $300 to repair... maybe more?
"Conundrum" because, before I realized it needed defrosting the first time, I spent some hours on the phone trying to line up a repair guy. Wound up trying Sears: $155 just to come out to the house, and then more as parts/labor dictate. Luckily they never showed up - but also never called to say they were not going to make it......
So much for Sears...
But I wasn't having any luck lining up any other vendors. Is large appliance repair becoming a lost art?
Am I trying to fool Mother Nature by getting this thing fixed?
Or is 25-30 years a good time to start thinking "New" ?
Maybe $300 today and the compressor goes the next day. At that age, time to replace. You'll save a few bucks on electricity too. I save $10 a month with a new fridge and that will cover the $600 difference is five years.
"Sears" service is sub contracted out, usually to a group called "A and E". And yes, they charge something like $75 - $100 to just look, and then another $75 - $100 plus parts to do the repair. Minimum.
In my case it was the light switch that's in the door frame. I picked up the replacement via Sears Parts [a] for $10 or so. Reasonable.
But it was _very hard_ to pop out the old one so I figured better to pay $100 (my initial guess) to their service rep to do the 10 minutes of work.
The service tech who showed up insisited he had to enter in the dual charge...
After he left I wrote a firm but polite note to Eddie's office stating that I felt, and was comfortable, paying the basic $100. But nothing more.
They called me back and agreed to cut down the bill.
Anyway, enough of that. If you've got a 20 y/o refrigerator the simple answer is that unless it's a trivial repair, such as cleaning and recleaning the coils - including the hidden ones - and double checking the door frame for leaks...
Unless it's something that simple, then dump it.
Note that in many areas you can get a free pickup and maybe even a rebate from your local utility.
[a] searparts.com is a superbly arranged repalr parts warehouse/web interface. A great many of the parts which you'd think should just be $5 to $10 are, indeed, $5 to $10.
Many are more of course.
Not just Sears but lotsof other, semi associated and affiliated, brands
IMO, it's either fix it yourself, which you might be able to do if it's just the defrost, or get a new one. If you're OK with it otherwise and can diagnose it, you can figure out what the cost of the replacement parts are.
Otherwise, I'd look for a new one. If you can get a few weeks out of this one, might be able to find a great deal. I found a Kitchenaid stainless, side by side, for $1300 at BestBuy a few years ago. Regular price was twice that. It was floor model and had a couple tiny dings.
The new ones draw just 90W or so when running. So you;ll save on electric over the years too.
At that age, I'd just go for new. As others have said, the new are more efficient and cheaper to run. Then too, fix the auto defrost and the compressor will take a hike within a week. ;)
One other consideration, check with your electric company. Here in IL, Communist Edison is offering a bounty of $100 for older, non-green units. They come out, pick it up and give you $100. Only caveat is that it must be in working condition. So. . . defrost it and give them a call and have them snag it when it's running.
You got me thinking. How about some paper or something blocking the path where the air is supposed to flow? Might as well start with the easiest, cheapest things first. He could go to one of the online parts sites and look for diagrams of how it's put together and how it works.
I'd try some DIY items before scrapping it : : completely thaw it out : thoroughly clean coils & fan & air-flow areas : thoroughly clean the chamber/tube that joins the freezer to the fridge compartments : thoroughly clean the condensate drainage : check the price of a new defrost timer and replace it if it's a cheap one. < can be under $ 20. or well over $ 100. >
I would suspect the door seals too. Also make sure the circulation fan is running and the ports are clear. Don't stack things in front of the louvers. Beyond that I agree I would not spend a lot of money on a fridge that old.
If Dan is right about the door seal, they're are MO surprisingly expensive at about $100, but still plenty cheap compared to even the 300 dollar repair you think it might be.
Check out the seal, and if you find a bad area, you can patch it with silicone sealant, the stuff that bends even when "dry" and if that mostly fixes the problem, buy a new one for your particular model.
I've had to replace the fan just below the freezer compartment, $20 or
30, and the thermostat there, same price. Both were very easy repairs, from the front. In addition the fan underneath it got jammed up, and it was weeks before I got around to taking out what had jammed it. (I had assumed the fan had broken, but it started spinning as soon as it was free.) I thought the compressor would be overworked during that time, but that was years ago and it's still fine. Another time a rug got pushed up against the front bottom which must have kept the air from circulating, but again, it's fine. All the plastic parts inside are fine too.
Mine is 39 years old and working as well as new. Sears Kenmore, which I think is Whirlpool.
Don't I read here that new appliances only last a few years. I know I've read that washers are like that, 5-9 years??? but seems to me other appliances including refrigerators were included in that. Maybe others remember, or search the archves and see.
I wouldn't be surprised if my fridge is still working 20 years after those new ones have failed.
My seal is splitting in one area (or more) at the outer side and nearest the door, but it doesn't actually open up and when the door is shut, it's squeezed even tighter, so I don't think that's a problem yet**.
Dan, yours was worse, I suppose??
**No frosting. Even when I've failed to shut the door to the fridge, 2 or 3 times, all night, there is water condensed inside it, but no frosting. Oh, that was another thing I thought might cause the compressor to burn out, but it is still working fine.
Real easy repair, whether it's the one just below the freezer, or the one at the bottom. My bottom one is right near the back, and I think most of these things are built the same way, regardlss of brand.
Good idea. After about 30 years, I finally cleaned my coils with a brush** or a vacuum cleaner, alhthough for some strange reason they weren't dirty. They must be the only part of my house that isn't dusty.
**They sell special coil brushes, narrow enough to go between them iiuc, but I'm not sure they'd be any better than a vacuum, especially a shop-vac. You should be able to see the dust, and how much less there is after you clean.
good idea.
Amazing. Yours are either $13 or 134!! And they look about the same.
(Even the connectors look about the same, though the cheap one doesn't have a color code. I wonder if it uses the same code as the expensive one, 1=blue,2=red. 3=brown, 4=black. )
Is there a heater that does the defrosting? If so, the contacts are probably 2 AC contacts and a normally open switch for the heater. Would that leave cooling competing with the heating or would the 40 or 50 degree warm freezer walls not really compete with the cold air?
Or is the compressor turned off when the defrosting is going on?
Isn't there a wiring diagram on the back of a fridge, or somewhere else? And once the OP knows the wiring, can't he test the AC supply to the defrost timer, the defrost timer itself, and the defrost heater coils, if any?
My mother had a self-defrosting fridge that I think my father bought in
1953. She woudl still have it but decided it was too expensive to move when she moved in 1966.
She always complained that it didnt' defrost when she wanted it to, and the last year she had it I read the label that surrounded the knob (behind a metal panel) and she was supposed to set that knob to the current time, instead of the time she wanted it to defrost. So I guess it always defrosted at whatever time it was when she had set the knob.
Other than that it worked perfectly.
"This timer will activate for 21 minutes every 6 hours."
My mother's only defrosted once per day (at 3AM, if you set the clock right).
If you do end up getting rid of it. we all went for 50 years with fridges that required defrosting, and still would if they hadn't invented better. There are still plenty of people who are willing to do that chore if they could have a free or $40 fridge.
There are second hand appliance stores in the poor part of town, in most cases. They will come pick it up. My only fear there is that the guy would sell it as if every feature worked. At the least you should get his word he won't do that, but better than that might be to shop in his store yourself first, and see if he admits to any non-visible broken-ness. Don't shave, wear old clothes, and maybe drink a little whiskey before you go, or you won't get an accurate read.
Even then you might not. I think Goodwill Industries etc. might have stopped handling large appliances, because they're so heavy for their staff to move. Maybe they have a bulletin board where you can describe it accurately, or maybe there is a pennysaver or supermarket bulletin board in the poor n'hod, or craigslist (I'm not sure how many people with internet would want it without autodefrost, but otoh, putting up a craiglist ad is so easy. OT3H, a used appliance dealer wil probably respond. Save him for later in case you can't come up with anyone else.).
I would move the old fridge out of the house myself, because nothing is more annoying than giving something away to be nice, and then having the recipient gouge a groove in your wall or door while he's taking it out. Arrange first to give the old one away and then when you get the new one delivered, they will at least take the old one outside where the other party can pick it up.
Actually, my friend showed me a second hand appliance store in a mostly well-to-do or upper-middle income suburb (and the rest middle-middle income. Reisterstown), with only iirc big, fancy, stainless steel models. For some reason he bought the cheapest one they had, which was still 500 or more, and I can't remember why, since he doens't own any residential rental property. Even a store like that might pick up your fridge and since they have a reputation to uphold, in a way they might be more likely to tell the truth to a buyer, or even do it for their cost of pickup and delivery, as an act of kindness, if indeed they knew of anyone too poor to spend 500.
In other words, you dont' have to scrap it if all that is wrong is that it doesn't SELF defrost.
- Well, almost. It was supposed to defrost only once per day at 3AM.
Say it was 4PM when she adjusted the knob, which she set, say, for 2AM. Now the fridge thinks it's 2AM and it plans to defrost at 3AM, which it thinks is an hour later, which is in fact 5PM. So it defrosts at 5PM, just when she was most likely to notice it.
So it always defrosted within an hour or two of the time she set the clock.
I guess one should read the manual, and the plate that surrounded the knob.
It is fast becoming a lost art as the cost of replacement and the cost of repair start really closing the gap. A 10 year old machine MIGHT be worth fixing - but not a 30 year old.
A robot can assemble a new one cheaper than a technitiancan dissassemble an old one
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