The post that separates my freezer from the refrigerator is all of a sudden very hot to the touch. It is hot all long the post, but even just a 1/4 or so into the freezer and refrigerator the wall is fine as is both the top and the bottom. Both sides are holding cold okay. Anybody have any ideas and should I worry? It is around a 10 y.o side by side Frigidair.
I just turned in a side-by-side GE, more than 20 years old, that did that. It's called a yoder loop. It part of the high-side tubing, on the way from the compressor to the evaporator. They run by the door to prevent condensation.
If it's hotter than usual, the condenser may not be cooling as well as it should. It could be dusty, or the blower fan could be slow or kaput.
Blower fan... what other kind is there? ;)
+1
Most likely is that it's been that way all along and Kurt just didn't notice it. Fridge here has it, for the reason you cite. Also, the fridge doesn't run 24/7, so possible he just caught it when it was running this time.
I just thought I'd note that older fridges didn't have that Yoder loop.
Older fridges had an electric mullion heater under the metal mullion to heat the mullion and keep condensation from forming on it. And, the manufacturer would put a switch in to turn that mullion heater off if it wasn't necessary cuz low humidity in the house would prevent condensation anyway.
Problem is, they called that mullion switch the "Energy Saver Switch" and people would invariably turn that switch to the ON position thinking that it needed to be in that position to save energy. In fact, the opposite was true. Turning that switch on turned the mullion heaters on, and in a lot of cases wasted energy.
Also, another very likely cause of a hot yoder loop is that the OP might have just put a lot of stuff in his fridge; like a case of 24 warm beer. The more warm stuff you put in the fridge, the more heat has to come out of the condensor, and the hotter that condensor coil (and hence yoder loop) will get. Once the beer gets cold, the temperature of that mullion should return to normal.
You can still buy those electric mullion heaters, but nowadays most people use them to warm their home made wine or beer to accelerate the fermentation process.
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