About a year ago I had to buy a new Frigidaire freezer (to replace a 14 year old Hotpoint with damp insulation foam) and discovered to my horror that it had to live in an ambient temperature of 16deg C or over. I asked about that here and got lots of useful and interesting comments.
I said I would try to repair the old Hotpoint freezer so that from time to time I could swap from one to the other to allow them to take turns in fully defrosting. Well I did manage to fix the old Hotpoint and it went into use again shortly before Christmas - it was handy then having the extra capacity. After Christmas the Hotpoint became the freezer in use and the new Frigidaire has been resting (switched off) during all this cold weather. The utility room they inhabit has regularly gone down to freezing in the last few months.
Today I put the Frigidaire back on and it seems to have survived its hibernation. So now I have both freezers in working order.
I'm writing to tell how I got the Hotpoint working again. I'd read lots of interesting comments from Andrew Gabriel on how he repaired his two Hotpoint machines so I had an idea how to proceed.
First I put the machine outside for a couple of weeks to let it defrost and dry out. It didn't dry noticeably. So I carefully stripped off the foil sealing layer from the bottom of the insulation foam (it was very torn anyway) and tried using a hot air gun. I soon gave up as it just didn't seem to want to dry out. Then I had a bright idea to stand the freezer on a thick pile of old newspapers so that they were in contact with the insulation. Every few days I took out the top layer of paper and replaced it with dry stuff. After some weeks the insulation was dry. I left it another few weeks to make sure.
The insulation foam didn't seem to be damaged apart from the foil sealing layer. I intended to put a piece of radiator reflector material over the foam but couldn't think how to seal it properly. So I decided to use some glass fibre roof sealer instead (it just happened to be in the garage). I painted several layers of this goo all over the insulation and up into the joins at the sides. It was very easy and seemed to give a good moisture proof seal.
After all this stuff set. I put the freezer back upright and after a day or so switched on. It worked perfectly and is still doing so.
The reason I think that the damp got into the insulation in the first place was that the thermostat tube and capilliary wasn't properly sealed and there was a large gap in the foil showing the insulation underneath. Vapour was bound to get in there and as the foam is open cell just built up over the years. (A wodge of something like chewing gum had been used and it hadn't stuck properly or had come loose.)
So now I'm wondering if this Hotpoint will last another 14 years.
With thanks to Andrew Gabriel.
Edgar