Fridge Feezer breaks each year

Sillychuckie

I bought a Fridge Freezer from John Lewis 3 years ago and it has broken 3 times after 8 months, 20 months and 32 months (approximately once each year).
The issue is always the same, and their 'fix' is the same.
They can't actually identify a problem, except for the fact that the 'gas pressure' inside the fridge freezer cooling system, has fallen to zero. They re-gas it, it seems to hold, and then it works.
There isn't a leak it seems (even a tiny slow one), since it takes 8 months to depressurize. However, there is clearly some fault, because a £400 fridge freezer should not break each year.
The first 2 incidents were covered by my John Lewis guarantee. The third incident was covered by my Indesit Hotpoint repair plan.

They say that a breakdown of 1 per year is not bad enough to justify a replacement, and they are repairing it each time to a standard which keeps it going for at least a year.

I can see their point of view and haven't pushed them too hard on this, but, the costs are starting to mount.

Each time this happens, we lose between £50-£100 worth of food.
It takes about 3 weeks to get it repaired (they often postpone the first appointment with some excuse), causing us to spend a further £50 'extra' on food during the period, because we can't always prevent it from spoiling. We could claim on insurance, but can't really afford the excess premiums that come with it.

Over the 3 occasions (and no doubt, it will happen again), we have spent almost the amount a new fridge/freezer would cost.

I have appealed to John Lewis and Hotpoint/Indesit/Domestic & General, to no avail - but I can't really afford to keep this up each year.

Do I have any rights, or, is everyone sticking to the agreeds Ts+Cs, and therefore what might be 'fair' and 'just' doesn't matter?

Thanks.
SC.

vaio

It's got a leak, they just need to find & fix it.

Just refilling it is treating symptoms rather than cause.

Write/phone the manufacturer and ask them the capacity of the circuit and the allowable leakage rate and armed with those figures write to the retailer mentioning SoG and the need to fix fault (not treat symptoms) without significant costs to the consumer (so can you have the food costs back please) and get a firm date for when they are going to come and find & fix the leak.

I'm sure there are environmental/health/legal issues to do with deliberately discharging refrigerants, which they are doing by recharging without finding the leak, so I'd mention those too.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/webw/HPAweb&Page&HPAwebAutoListName/Page/1317136404529

it's aimed at large systems but the principles should be the same http://www.feta.co.uk/uploaded_images/files/BRA%20CodeofP-%20LeakTightness.pdf

In practice, finding a small leak on a domestic freezer would cost more than just giving you a new one so that's what they should do

Sillychuckie

Thanks for the reply. The last engineer said that even the smallest leak (a pin hole), would discharge in weeks - so the fact it lasts 8-12 months implied that there was no leak.
He did use a 'scanner' to try and find any escaping gas, but was unable to do so.

What do you mean when you write "SoG"?

I agree that it must be a leak, despite what the engineer said, so I will write to the manufacturer as you have recommended.
Thank you.

Regards,
SC

vaio

SoG = Sale of Goods

There must be a leak as freezers don't routinely need re-gassing every year, ours is 25 years old and still works. All they need to do is find it and fix it (or give you a new one)

Naf

Point out to them that there are two ways that the pressure can drop; either there is a leak in the system, or someone has physically opened it up & drained it. They've fixed it before, so they clearly don't think you're draining it ergo there must be a leak.

vaio

With regard to finding leaks, the standard scanner the repairman would have is for finding "gross" leaks that as he says would drain it in weeks.

It's sort of academic interest but for production use something like http://products.inficon.com/en-us/nav-products/Product/Detail/Sensistor%20ISH2000%20Hydrogen%20Leak%20Detector?path=Products%2Fpg_LeakDetectors will find leaks of the order of 1 x 10^-7 cc/s.

In round terms, for a freezer like yours with maybe 300g of refrigerant in it, that's the equivalent of finding a leak that would take 50 or 100 years to let it all out.

WTFH

Where is your fridge located? Is it in a heated or unseated room? What time of year does it break down?

Some people on here are very good at giving precise causes of problems without knowing half the facts!

Sillychuckie

I recall the engineer saying that old fridge freezers used a gas with larger molecules, so were less prone to leaks. I mentioned that my parents one was 30 years old and 'they didn't make them how they used to'. He said the new, non CFC types leak more often, but I think we all agree once a year is not good enough.

The Fridge Freezer, a Hotpoint (FF200LP), is in the Kitchen. It is an unheated room, and usually dies around about this time of year (though it isn't too cold yet).

Regards,
SC

WTFH

Check the instruction manual for the minimum ambient operating temperature. For many fridge freezers that is 5-10C.

If it always "breaks down" at this time of year, it could be because the temp is too low in your kitchen.

Sillychuckie

Would the temperature being low cause the gas to leak?

As my previous posts made clear, the fridge breaks down because the gas pressure falls to zero and they have to re gas it. I always smell it when it happens. The temperature in the room right now is 13.6 degrees, but we have just got home so the heating hasn't been on.

We live in a small flat, so even though the room is unheated, it gets plenty of ambient heat from the adjacent rooms. I would imagine it is typically 15-16 degrees, even during the coldest periods of the year.

I doubt this has anything to do with it.
It has broken historically in:

December 2011
August 2012 (still fairly warm)
October 2013

I have another repair visit next week so will be more forceful with the engineer, and write to Indesit & Hotpoint again as recommended above.
Thanks.

Regards,
SC.

WTFH

Is the engineer a Hotpoint one, or and independent? Is he one that you found, or one that JL/Hotpoint sent?