Unrepairable freezer?

Do you mean that it never turns off? Mine hardly ever turns off, but I put up with it. It's a fridge freezer, ice forms in the fridge part and I have to take ice cream out 20 minutes before I want to consume it.

I suppose you could fit one of those timeswitches with tabs every 15 minutes and set a lot of them off.

I can't help if you mean one fitted neatly in the front of the freezer.

I do know people use plug-in controllers like

FWIW I was told a point to look for is a controller that has - or can be set to have - a decent difference between the temperatures cuts out and restarts so the freezer isn't cycling every few minutes.

At only 4 years old, I'd go back to where you bought it from and suggest that a freezer should be expected to last a lot longer than 4 years and, having been deemed unrepairable, you need money back to put towards another freezer. The Sale of Goods Act 1979 gives you protection for up to 6 years from purchase.

Having got 4 years out of it, you can't expect the full price back, but you could push for more than half - the typical life of a freezer is apparently between 12 and 20 years, so you've only got between a 1/3 and a 1/5.

Hmm, I'd be most suspicious if it was a cable myself, unless for some weird quirky reason the cable is part of the thermostat. Sounds like a cop out and bad design to me. Brian

But you would not embed the thermostat itself in the foam. I'd have thought it was just soldered on the end of a bit of wire. At such a short b life, I'd argue it was almost useless, and maybe they would give you a new one or at least a similar one with a large discount as it had been another make, many carry 5 year parts and labour anyway. Brian

a. the relevant law is the Consumer Rights Act 2015 for sales after autumn 2015

b. stuff is expected to last a reasonable time but what's reasonable varies - e.g. not the same for a £199 Beko and a £1,299 Miele. FWIW I think 12 to 20 is pushing it even for the Miele.

c. since it's over 6 months old the seller can put the onus on the buyer to show the was present when sold and not down to the way it was used

That is my thought too. They might also find someone more competent to fix it so as not take the hit in a refund.

A failing thermostat in such a short time would inherently suggest either a poor design or a manufacturing detect.

Hmm, I wonder how much that is costing you in electricity?

Tim

You need to pass the temp probe into the freezer somehow. A low voltage one could use that flat flexible pcb tape. Round wire would cause increased icing. You need a timeout or hysteresis to stop rapid switching. And set it for 18C for general use. Wallwart, diode/tr probe, comparator, transistor, relay would do it. Make the hysteresis adustable, trying to restart a compressor before it's unloaded isn't good for it.

Probably £100 pa.

I thought that the old act had been superseded, but when I looked up the SoGA, the .gov.uk website page returned showed it as still current.

There are so few moving parts in a freezer (more in a fridge-freezer) and the compressor is totally enclosed and lubricated, that a long life is the norm - even for a cheap freezer.

Up to six months, it is assumed that any fault was inherent. After that it is up to the consumer to get an independent report that the item is faulty and has not failed due to mistreatment or normal wear and tear. Hotpoint themselves have said that it is a failed thermostat. Thermostats do fail and any design that does not allow replacement of one is clearly a deficient design.

Tim

Much of the SOGA Act is still in force (not least for business-to-business sales) but the provisions governing consumer rights in the OP's circs were repealed by the CRA 2015.

I wasn't aware that "repairability" was part of goods being of "satisfactory quality" under CRA 2015. And it provides explicitly (in section 23) that a consumer can't require repair if that's impossible or disproportionate. Is it something from case law or from later legislation?

Goods being suitable for purpose includes a reasonable lifetime - which means either lasting long enough or being repairable. Four years is very clearly not a reasonable life for a freezer.

I would use the argument that if the faulty thermostat was repairable then perhaps the thermostat has a short lifetime.

In the case where a thermostat cannot be feasibly repaired, then I would argue that it should survive the typical lifetime of a freezer.

No case law, but where merchantability is concerned, an unrepairable failure is unexpected and so premature failure before the expected lifetime of the freezer.

There's plenty of anecdotal data on the net relating to this fault/TV, but the burden of proof too great . . .

Bought a new TV from Richer Sounds - with a 6 year warranty :-)

A 100 quid a year is (at 30p/unit) 333 kWh.

Call it 365 kWh, so 1 kWh per day, which would indicate 41 watts consumption when running 24/7.  Umm, I doubt that.

Yeah I measured it by timing the paint blob on the meter disc. That might have been the continuous consumption with/without the fridge freezer being on.