frost-free freezer - can it be repaired?

purple-dub

Hi, our frost-free fridge freezer is poorly and DH wants to put it out of its misery and get a new one :eek:
we noticed the floor was wet and traced it to the freezer, it's leaking water and this is gradually becoming more frequent. in the last few days there has been such a build-up of ice inside that one of the drawers was frozen solid; when I managed to get it out I found loads of ice which I cleared, but this afternoon the floor was wet again.

DH just wants to buy a new one - to be fair it's over 15 years old so has done pretty well - but I'd love to know if it can be repaired - I'd hate to bin it if it can be salvaged but he's putting the pressure on!
The temperature hasn't been altered, er, EVER , the only thing that's happened is we've pulled it out a few times to decorate behind it, but we've been very gentle with it and it's only moved back and forth a few feet.

Anyone out there who can save it from the knacker's yard?

Thanks in advance!

McKneff

No, at 15 years of age its given you good service, let it rest in peace in the great freezer place in the Sky.

Buy yourself a spanking brand new one.

purple-dub

:rotfl:whose side are you on?!?!

mikey72

Have you ever tried turning it off for a weekend? I'd try that before buying a new one. Even frost free freezers can freeze up.

purple-dub

no, never, amazing considering 'turn it off n on again' is my usual trouble-shooting approach! and i didn't realise that frost-free still sometimes require defrosting

McKneff

I had a ff for 15 years and it never needed defrosting, I though that was the whole point.

Its probably costing you more to run it anyway, get yourself a triple rated A one, I'm on his side:rotfl: and yours, I'd be off to the shops like a shot.

Shop around though, decide which one you want, then put the model number in your browser, the difference in price for the same one is amazing. Dixons is brilliant and usually free delivery.

purple-dub

i didn't know dixons even still existed! :eek:

i'm really reluctant to buy a new one, i'm currently researching a new oven as that's gone kaput too! you won't be surprised to hear the temperature knob sheared off several years ago so i've been cooking everything at the same temp since :rotfl:, then the functions packed up one-by-one, so i've worked my way through those, now a week ago the thing stopped working altogether bar the grill!!! i think the appliances have learned to communicate, grrr!

*sigh* i can see i'm going to have to bite the bullet, time to grow a thick skin and get my haggling head on!

McKneff

Dixons are on line only now, but Ive bought a couple of major things from them and have have brilliant service (and prices) from them.
They are a sister company of Currys but always significantly cheaper.

Hatrick24

Hi,
Frost free freezers usually run a short defrost cycle roughly once a day. You don't notice it as it takes such a short time, but it is this that stops any ice building up. The most common thing to go wrong (certainly in the ones we used to sell) is the defrost heater. It sounds as if the defrost heater has stopped working and so you are not getting the defrost cycle, hence the ice is starting to build up as it would in a non frost free freezer. Why not get an engineer out for advice?

purple-dub

Thanks Hatrick, could this be a stay of execution for the old thing?!?!

Would they call out though for such an old fridge?

Ben84

Ours did go through a problem like yours once, the cause was the door hadn't been closed properly for a while and all the humid air in the kitchen got in and turned to ice, lots of ice that overwhelmed the defrosting cycle and made lots of watery mess inside it. Because they're designed to clear small amounts of ice regularly, they just don't work well on large build ups. You can go years without realising this until the door is left slightly open one day. Another possibility is that many fridges and freezers have a pipe that empties the water from defrosting in to a tray on top of the compressor so that the waste heat evaporates it - but it might be blocked somehow, perhaps with ice so the water can't go away and is just melting and re-freezing over and over again and building up inside it.

Anyway, I wouldn't throw it out just yet. A good no cost first step to eliminate these two possibilities is clearing everything out and defrosting it, cleaning the coils on the back if they're dirty and making sure there is a clear path for defrosted water to go in to the tray above the compressor. Then start it up again and see if it runs ok. If you move it around a lot during cleaning and defrosting, just leave it overnight for any bubbles in the gas to clear before turning it on again.

As for the energy savings from a new one, provided it's not too much more costly to buy, it's nice to have the most efficient one possible if you must replace it, but the savings usually just aren't that big that they should encourage people to throw out appliances on account of them alone.