Warm fridge freezer

Probably just living up to its billing. Frost free. Indeed likely-soon-to-be cold free. :-)

Low gas pressure?

John Rumm formulated the question :

Gas leaked out. I think I read/heard something about being able to top them up using a car type a/c topper upper kit (Halfords/ebay).

Yup, that thought had occurred to me, judging by the way the pipes have been crimped off and soldered, it does not look very serviceable.

Do they have a filling valve usually? More to the point, if the gas has suddenly decided to leg it, one presumes it would do so again unless there is a fridge version of radweld!

Is the inside cold thingy - evaporator??? fairly free of ice? If the auto defrost timer fails than it becomes a solid block of ice. Can the fan blow through it?

Hard to tell on this one... there are sever layers of false back to the freezer compartment. I took the first off, which revealed a flat white plastic back with some ice on it, and a round hole with the fan in it. I presume the actual cooling fins must be behind that. I do have and endoscope - so I may go shove that through the fan blades shortly and have a look.

John Rumm explained on 08/02/2010 :

No, one has to be installed.

The leak needs to be found and fixed, but presumably it could last another 10 years without being fixed.

John Rumm explained on 08/02/2010 :

The flat plastic back could well be what you are looking for, the heat exchanger. They tend to be plastic these days.

Does it ever sound as though it is defrosting? - cracking sounds. I dealt with one that did 20 mins defrost every 8 hours. Got a new timer of e-bay for £7.

It is usually possible to hand wind the timer to the defrost position.

Hard to tell - this one has always made fairly loud clonking sounds from time to time. I think it is still doing it.

I would have to find it first!

If ice is visible on the outer plastic cover - this might imply the inside is really solid with ice.

I got bit by frost frees too. So many ways to go wrong, and such poor reliability.

A comon problem that takes nothing do address is icing up in hidden places. A good defrost is often all that's needed, but sometimes it recurs. That's the first thing I'd do anyway.

NT

How, what attachment would you use ?

Advice I got was that once it's happened, you're only throwing good money after bad trying to recharge it

John Rumm wrote on Feb 8, 2010:

I have a Hoover frost free fridge-freezer that did the same sort of thing. The problem was that the freezer had iced up (in spite of its frost free label). If it's the same as mine there's a grid at the back of the freezer unit that can be removed by taking out two screws. Behind it is the cooling unit which in mine was completely iced up. A short treatment with a hair dryer cured it.

Does turning it upside down for an hour still do anything?