What's wrong with this fridge freezer?

Its not the thermostat. It would be handy if the OP told us if the compressor is running.

Reply to
Mr Pounder
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I left the job in 1999. Maybe you missed that bit?

Reply to
Mr Pounder

It runs for a second or two and then stops. And does that again several minutes later. And so on. With the super setting on all the time, the temp of the freezer is holding at -18.

Previously, the super setting would pretty quickly whip the temp down to the mid minus twenties but it always stops at -18 now.

I don't see how the comp running for such short bursts is keeping the temp down.

The fridge is now up to +8.

This behaviour started when there was a temporary interruption to the power a few weeks ago. When (or shortly after) the power came back on, that's when I heard the first clunk. But I don't see how that can be anything other than coincidence.

I haven't heard it clunk since I pulled it out to check on Bob's loose compressor mountings earlier today.....

Reply to
mike

Classic knacked compressor I'm afraid to say.

It can't maintain temperature if the compressor is not running. You seem to have very good insulation. The temperature will go up. Try to keep the freezer door closed. Be prepared to lose some food.

If a compressor is old and weak it will have been running a lot and would have been quite hot to the touch. The power cut allowed it to go cold. Old tired compressors sometimes do not like going cold.

Reply to
Mr Pounder

There's a horrible bodge that might keep it running ok until you get a new one. Put a 3kW heater in series with the compressor.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

No, its one of the reasons I mentioned it.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

In this case the simplest way is the best way as there is much less to go wrong. Defrosting using a hair dryer with care takes me 20 minutes every 3 to 4 months. This is also an opportunity to clean the fridge out.

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Reply to
Mr Pounder

So, its not the thermostat after all then?

Reply to
Mr Pounder

As my diagnosis is well known to those in the trade, it would be pointless adding anything to any article.

Reply to
Mr Pounder

depends on the behaviour. AIUI the OP said it ran continuously on one setti ng, then it seemed that wasnt what was happening. If it always cuts out qui ckly its likely to be a partial compressor short, and the horrible bodge of ten enables such compressors to run - but not always. Its hard to say much with confidence until the symptoms are made fully clear.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

It has started to go up now, as you say.

It was actually very hot this morning when I grabbed it to test the mountings.

I was wary of reading anything into the power cut but I see what you're saying.

Thanks for the replies.

Reply to
mike

ting, then it seemed that wasnt what was happening. If it always cuts out q uickly its likely to be a partial compressor short, and the horrible bodge often enables such compressors to run - but not always. Its hard to say muc h with confidence until the symptoms are made fully clear.

Sorry if I wasn't clear but I said it was holding the temperature on the su per setting, not that it was running continuously. Perhaps its brief short bursts of activity were more frequent on the super setting? Anyway, it se ems today was its last gasp.

Thanks for the replies.

Reply to
mike

etting, then it seemed that wasnt what was happening. If it always cuts out quickly its likely to be a partial compressor short, and the horrible bodg e often enables such compressors to run - but not always. Its hard to say m uch with confidence until the symptoms are made fully clear.

super setting, not that it was running continuously. Perhaps its brief sho rt bursts of activity were more frequent on the super setting? Anyway, it seems today was its last gasp.

Just to follow up...

Cold night last night so I was hoping that we wouldn't have a freezer full of spoiled food.

Got up this morning to find freezer down to -23, fridge back at +3 and the compressor humming merrily away. So reports of its demise were somewhat pr emature.

Clearly can't carry on with this uncertainty though so will be looking at s ourcing a new FF today but what is going on? Is it just the compressor goi ng through its death throes?

Reply to
mike

You said it was switching in and out regularly before this, but it was only on for a very short time - maybe after lots of these cycles, it has warmed up enough that it is now "working"

I assume it is on "super freeze" as the freezer is down to -23, if you turn this off, it will mean the compressor is powered off for a good while until the freezer temp is at around the -17 mark, this time may be long enough to stop it working again, so if you are getting a new appliance, I would suggest leaving it on super freeze, this also gives you more time if the compressor does stop again.

how long was the power cut, out of interest?

Reply to
Toby

Just to add to this, the problem may be with the controller, I had a fridge that showed the same sort of issue, with the compressor running for a second or so, then stopping, the tell-tail for me was when the compressor was switched in, the LED's on the control module in the fridge dimmed, which was not normal for this controller - I simply bypassed the control to run the compressor permanently, and it ran fine, so the control module was replaced, and it has been fine since...

Reply to
Toby

mike posted

I needed to buy a new larder freezer a year ago and searched high and low for a Bosch Exel, of which I have had excellent experience, but I couldn't find any. Maybe they have stopped doing them. I bought a Samsung instead, and that has been very satisfactory.

Reply to
Big Les Wade

You'd think, in this day and age, manufacturers would come up with some way of easily seeing what is and what isn't available in their range from home, wouldn't you?

Maybe some sort of electronic catalogue?

Nah, it'll never catch on.

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Reply to
Adrian

Just to follow up...

Cold night last night so I was hoping that we wouldn't have a freezer full of spoiled food.

Got up this morning to find freezer down to -23, fridge back at +3 and the compressor humming merrily away. So reports of its demise were somewhat premature.

Clearly can't carry on with this uncertainty though so will be looking at sourcing a new FF today but what is going on? Is it just the compressor going through its death throes?

DOH! This is bizarre. Like a true gentleman I stand corrected. Perhaps. Frost free refrigeration has:- a fan, defrost heater, timer and faults can be difficult to diagnose. Conventional is straight forward and faults are easily diagnosed as there is very little to go wrong. Most of the refrigeration questions appearing on this group are frost free problems. I would say that your experience and the above is a very good reason to avoid frost free in the future. Please let us know of any future development.

Reply to
Mr Pounder

You might still need to look for EXXCEL rather than EXEL. :-)

Reply to
polygonum

:

It is exactly as you described. It chugged away quite happily on "super" a ll day yesterday finally reaching -26 in the evening. So I flicked it back to "eco" to see what would happen and this morning the alarm was sounding and the temp was back up to -12.

It's currently back on "super" again and has dropped to -18.

It was off for between 2 and 3 hours. And therein lies another tale which I'll tell because it mirrors the diagnosis of the fridge problem.

The "power cut" was me turning the power to the circuit off for the followi ng reason.

One night, the oven decided to ignore the temperature setting and incinerat e the food.

I though that was most likely a failed thermostat so I Googled it and saw f rom several apparently reliable websites that that was the case.

The following day, the oven was working again and I did nothing about it un til a week and a half later when it refused to heat.

At this point, I ordered a replacement thermostat. (In retrospect, I see I have should rediagnosed the problem or put a meter across the thermostat.)

New thermostat fitted... still no heat. So now I check both thermostats wi th a meter, confirm they both work and re-Google to discover the other diag nosis is a failed element.

I whip the cover off the element and there's a fracture right across it. N ew element ordered, fitted and everything's working fine. (Apart from the f ridge...)

Electronics has never been my strong point so maybe someone could educate m e here: the initial diagnosis of overheating due to failed thermostat seem s reasonable. How does a failing element lead to overheating rather than n o heat?

Obvioulsy (now) I also made a mistake in not seeing a connection between th e power interruption and the fridge fault appearing but, at the time, it se emed like I would be drawing a spurious connection.

A couple more questions:

  1. If a replacement controller is available at a reasonable price, how easy is it to change and would it make sense to do so on a twenty year old appl iance or are other parts (the compressor, for example) likely reaching the end of their service lives?
  2. If the controller is faulty, given the other symptoms, isn't Mr Pounder' s original diagnosis of a failing compressor also still true? I'm still pu zzling over whether the fact that it works on "super" means it's fine or th e fact that it stops working when it cools down means it's knackered.....
Reply to
mike

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