How to investigate and fix a fridge that is too warm

in this video I'll walk you through a real-world  inspection and repair of a fridge that wasn't   keeping food cold I'll go through a mechanistic  view of how these devices work and I'll show   you the high points of what to look for when your  fridge goes bad so the problem today is a fridge   that isn't keeping food cold first I checked  the door seals and those were okay and opening   the door the inside light came on and I could hear  the fans and the compressor operating normally the   first clue I got was the difference in temperature  between the two compartments the temperature in   the main compartment was at room temperature 19  degrees C and the temperature in the freezer was   almost normal at minus 16 degrees C okay I got to  confess that I'm embarrassed about this next part   just because you know something about maintenance  doesn't mean that you're gonna come through as a   responsible homeowner all the time most Freight  is the condenser coils are in the back but to get   better access these coils are in the front look at  all this dog hair push up against the coil there's   no air flow here no wonder it can't pump heat  well I pulled a fridge out to get better access   you know the old style clothes were a lot easier  to clean because they were mounted on the back   of the fridge and they had a much bigger surface  area and so you could just pull the fridge open   vacuum of course nobody did that so by putting  the coil on the bottom you have a smaller coil   but it's much harder to clean in the end run  so I'm gonna get some compressed air in there   and blow it out we'll see if that does the trick  I'd like to get to the condenser fan to try and   clean it better from behind so I'm gonna take  off these screws get this panel out of the way well look at all that dust alright well that's  not gonna fly some parts a couple of things we   see right off first is it's really dirty and I'm  gonna need to unplug it and then vacuum it all out   but the second thing is that's the condenser fan  right there and it's functioning normally now just   to help you identify parts this of course is a  compressor and to tell which is the high side and   which is the low side you just touch the tubing  the high side is going to be hot so this is the   hot side that's the cool side so room temperature  gas freon gas comes from the evaporator in the   fridge to the compressor in the compressor it's  compressed and of course it heats up and this is   heated compressed gas coming out of the compressor  here it goes to the condenser and I can see it   going in there to the coils of the condenser at  the condenser it releases its heat and changes   state to a liquid from there it goes through an  expansion valve which I can't see at the moment   and then from the expansion valve it goes to the  evaporator drawing in energy from the inside of   the fridge to be drawn back once it gets back to  the compressor and the cycle repeats itself so I   just unplugged it you can see the condenser fan  that's slowing down and now I'll just vacuum it   out safely okay one other thing I'll show you  while we're here is that these fridges have   a defrost cycle where the fridge warms up to get  rid of frost in the freezer and fridge and when it   does that it creates moisture water that has to  go somewhere and they have a a tube that allows   that moisture to drain and I'm pointing right at  the tube right now and you can see it that tube   goes down to a tray in there do you see the tray  it's so along the back there's another view of   the tray there and that white thing and that tray  holds the moisture allows it to evaporate from the   tray without causing rust or other problems and if  that tube gets blocked off then the fridge won't   drain properly you may end up with the lake of ice  in the fridge in which case you've got to remove   that tube and clean it out and allow it to return  to normal sometimes they get blocked up just with   ice just before we button this up let's look at  the compressor made in Brazil interestingly enough   it's charged with 1/3 for a refrigerant and it's  locked rotor amperage is 19.0 amps now let's look   at the evaporator fan to get at that we need  to pull the drawer out so the easiest thing to   do is just to get to a little bit so to get the  door off with this pull up use tray off like so and now the drawer and the drawer you just  there's a tab you just push in on this tab   right here and then pull out and then it slides  out do that on both sides so this is a cover for   the evaporator there are four screws here and  you can take those off and the evaporator fan   is behind this thing and you just pull it out see  if I can do that without breaking the plastic tabs there these two tabs you might be able to get  at them with a pocket screwdriver and push them   sideways but there they are there anyway I hate  plastic clips of course the first time you try   to get them off you end up possibly breaking the  tabs I didn't break the tab but look at this so   that's the way it goes and there's a little  printing here that you can see when you get   it off said release and there's a screwdriver so  you press the screwdriver in there and you pry it   that way so if I turn the fridge back on should  see that thing going you see the fan is running   and I can feel air blowing so that evaporator fan  is working fine now let me try and give you a view   of the evaporator you can actually see the coils  in there and I see they're not all that iced up   and you can't get this metal piece completely off  because the ice maker is kind of in a way that I   can tie it back for you so you can have a look and  you can see there are thee that's the evaporator   there you can see it's iced over a little bit  well here's a freeze-frame of the evaporator   fan it's a simple shaded pole AC motor cheap and  easy to replace if it goes bad these motors have   low torque so it doesn't take much to freeze the  fan blades and when they do the motor can make a   humming noise it's a safe design that rarely  overheats even when the rotor is locked the   shaded bulb motors are everywhere in the home  they're in bathroom fans pencil sharpeners up   etc if you're interested in more detail about  how these intriguing little things work search   my channel for another video I've did of a failed  oven fan motor now this little evaporator fan   motor sitting where the red arrow points is  a quarter back of your fridge it circulates   cold air around the freezer and it blows some  of that air up a hidden bypass channel in the   back shown with the yellow arrows at the top of  the bypass channel is a little plastic door with   a temperature-controlled actuator that adjusts  how much cold air spills into the main fridge   that's why fridges have two temperature controls  one in the freezer that controls a set point for   compressor cycling and a second that adjusts how  much cold air spills into the main compartment   from the freezer let me show you how the upper  fridge temperature control works the temperature   control dial pulls a belt to rotate a dial on the  door actuator the belt has a tensioner that you   pop off if you need to remove the actuator to  get out the actuator you pull off plastic and   styrofoam covers to show a rectangular hole  through which cold air blows from the freezer   now you can't see the door right now because  it's presently laid flat and wide open the arm   of the actuator is at vertical white plastic arm  holding the door down and the spring beside it is   pulling the door up as the frig cools by metal  strip inside the actuator lifts up the arm to   allow the spring to pull the door closed these  actuators can go bad and they're replaces a unit   the whole thing is held in place by plastic  clips that allow you to easily pull them off   if you want to you can also test them easily on  the bench with ice and warm air I actually pulled   this one out and it passed flawlessly although my  clips didn't get recorded well when I happily went   into the room and told my wife the fridge was  fixed she gave me stink eye of course she had   her mind set on buying a new fridge in the end I  think what happened was that the dirty coil led to   inefficient cooling which led to rapid cycling  and the compressor and there wasn't enough gap   between cycles to allow proper defrosting and so  there was inefficient air transfer between the   two compartments in any case it's fixed now the  one regret I have is that I didn't do a proper   maintenance here and I could have saved about a  hundred dollars in energy costs if it had done   this sooner and that has to be the number-one  message going forward thanks for watching

Channel: spelunkerd

Views: 1,891,158

Keywords: How to, repair, fridge, freezer, condenser coil, compressor, fix, fridge too warm, freezer not working, fridge not working, diagnose, new fridge?, Fridge quit, fridge too hot, freon, How does a fridge work

Id: UuxA96ry3Wg

Length: 8min 38sec (518 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 02 2019