I have a Frigidaire FRT18HS6JS1 refrigerator that recently constantly runs, but isn’t cold, stays around 60°F. The freezer section still cools, but not very well, 10-14°F. The freezer vents are covered in frost, and the channel for the cold air from the freezer to the refrigerator is completely blocked with ice. I believe the fan still works fine because I can feel the air pushing.
After searching the internet, I tried changing the defrost timer, but it didn’t fix the problem. I opened the back panel of the freezer and the evaporator was completely covered in ice (https://imgur.com/DRjHvPq). The ice at the bottom area around the defrost heater was very hard. We do have a habit of over overpacking the freezer to the point it just barely closes, but we’ve never had a problem in all these years.
I tried a multimeter test on the defrost heater for continuity and got 36-38 ohms. I then tried a continuity test on the unplugged defrost thermostat and it will give me a reading. If I plug the defrost thermostat back in it will give me a reading from the back of the plug as well. If I unplug the defrost thermostat and read it again it will not give me a reading, just a 1 on the left side of the multimeter. If I plug the defrost thermostat back in it also will not give me a reading from the back of the plug.
I plugged everything back in and the refrigerator and let it run for 30 mins and tried the continuity test on the defrost thermostat again and the same thing happens. I’m pretty sure I’m touching the correct wires marked here (https://imgur.com/DCdKded), but not 100%.
It’s been about 22 hours since I cleared out all the ice and everything seems to be working again. Refrigerator is cooling 35-40°F, and no frost on freezer vents. Though I can’t see if there’s ice building back up on the evaporator without opening it back up. The refrigerator also isn’t constantly running anymore.
Do you think the defrost thermostat is the problem or it’s something else? Could’ve leaving it unplugged a couple of hours and clearing the ice have fixed the problem?
Thanks for any help.